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OLD LINES IN NEW BLACK AND WHITE. From 
Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier. With 12 full-page illus- 
trations, from designs in charcoal by F. Hopkinson 
Smith. Oblong folio or in portfolio, $12.00. 

The Same, Large-Paper Edition. With Illustrations 
IDrinted on Japanese paper, mounted on plate paper. Edi- 
tion limited to 100 copies. In portfoHo (16 x 22 inches), 
$25.00. 

WELL-WORN ROADS OF SPAIN, HOLLAND, AND 
ITALY, travelled by a Painter in search of the Pictur- 
esque. With 16 full-page phototype reproductions of 
water-color drawings, and text by F. Hopkinson Smith, 
profusely illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches. A Holi- 
day volume. Folio, full gilt, $15.00. 

The Same. Popular Edition. Including some of the il- 
lustrations of the above. i6mo, gilt top, $i.25. 

A BOOK OF THE TILE CLUB. Containing 114 reproduc- 
tions of representative Paintings, Bas-Reliefs, Portraits, 
and Sketches by members of the Tile Club of New York, 
including 27 full-page phototypes. With Sketch of the 
Club, and account of one of its Meetings by F. Hopkin- 
son Smith and Edward Strahan. A Holiday volume. 
Folio, gilt top, $25.00. 

The Same. Edition de Luxe. Limited to 100 copies. 
With full-page illustrations on Japanese paper. Superbly 
bound in vellum. Folio, full gilt, $50.00. 

A WHITE UMBRELLA IN MEXICO. Illustrated by au- 
thor. i6mo, gilt top, $1.50 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
Boston and New York. 




" My fire is iny friend," — Page 27. 



COLONEL CARTER 
OF CARTERSVILLE 

BY F HOPKINSON SMITH 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY E W KEMBLE AND 

THE AUTHOR 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

<^U l^iamiiK l^rp^iff, Cambridge 

1891 




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Copyright, 1891, 
By F. Hopkinson Smith, and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

A// rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U.S.A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



5V§riSI 



/ dedicate this hook to the memory of my counselor 
and my friend, — that most delightful of story-ielkrs, 
that most charming of comrades,— my dear old Mother ; 
whose early life was spent near the shade of the Colonel's 
porch, and whose keen enjoyment of the stories between 
these covers — stories we have so often laughed over 
together — is still among my plcasantesi recollections. 

F. H. S. 

New York, May, iSpi, 



Contents and List of Illustrations 



CHAPTER PAGE 

" My fire is my friend" . . Frontispiece. 

I. The Colonel's House in Bedford Place . i 

The Street Entrance i 

Chad " dishin' the Dinner " . , , . 13 

" Gentlemen, a true Southern lady " . . 16 

Fitz 19 

IL The Garden Spot of Virginia seeks an 

Outlet to the Sea 25 

" Chad was groaning under a square wicker 

basket" 26 

" The little negroes around the door " . .46 

III. An old Family Servant .... 49 

"Who's that?" 53 

The old Clock Tower 61 

Mister Grocerman ... . . 76 

IV. The Arrival of a true Southern Lady 78 
V. An Allusion to a Yellow Dog ... 99 

The Colonel's Office 100 

The Advance Agent 104 

The Nervous Man 108 

VL Certain Important Letters . . . iir 

" Like an ebony Statue of Liberty " . . 123 

VII. The Outcome of a Council of War . . 126 

" Down a flight of stone steps "... 143 



vi Contents and List of Illustrations 

VIII. A High Sense of Honor . . . .145 
" Klutchem looked at him in perfect astonish- 
ment" 152 

IX. A Visit of Ceremony 154 

The Colonel's Door 154 

X. Chad in Search of a Coal-Field . . 165 

XI. Chad on his own Cabin Floor . . 180 

Polishing the Parlor Floor . . . .181 

Henny ........ 187 

Some Stray Pickaninnies 191 

XII. The Englishman's Check .... 198 




COLONEL CARTER OF CAR- 
TERSVILLE 



CHAPTER I 

The Colonel's House in Bedford Place 

The dinner was at the colonel's — an 
old-fashioned, partly furnished, two-story 
house nearly a century old which crouches 
down behind a larofer and more modem 



2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

dwelling fronting on Bedford Place within 
a stone's throw of the tall clock tower of 
Jefferson Market. 

The street entrance to this curious abode 
is marked by a swinging wooden gate 
opening into a narrow tunnel which dodges 
under the front house. It is an uncanny 
sort of passageway, mouldy and wet from a 
long-neglected leak overhead, and is lighted 
at night by a rusty lantern with dingy glass 
sides. 

On sunny days this gruesome tunnel 
frames from the street a delightful picture 
of a bit of the yard beyond, with the quaint 
colonial door and its three steps let down 
in a welcoming way. 

Its retired location and shabby entrance 
brought it quite within the colonel's in- 
come, and as the rent was not payable in 
advance, and the landlord patient, he had 
surrounded himself not only with all the 
comforts but with many of the luxuries of 
a more pretentious home. In this he was 
assisted by his negro servant Chad, — an 
abbreviation of Nebuchadnezzar, — who 
was chambermaid, cook, butler, body-ser- 
vant, and boots, and who by his marvelous 
tales of the magnificence of '' de old fambly 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ^ 

place in Caartersville" had established a 
credit among the shopkeepers on the ave- 
nue which would have been denied a much 
more solvent customer. 

To this hospitable retreat I wended my 
way in obedience to one of the colonel's 
characteristic notes : — 

No. 51 Bedford Place, 

F7'iday. 

Everything is booming — Fitz says the 
scheme will take like the measles — dinner to- 
morrow at six — don't be late. 

Carter. 

The colonel had written several similar 
notes that week, — I lived but a few streets 
away, — all on the spur of the moment, 
and all expressive of his varying moods and 
wants ; the former suggested by his un- 
bounded enthusiasm over his new railroad 
scheme, and the latter by such requests as 
these : '' Will you lend me half a dozen 
napkins — mine are all in the wash, and 
I want enough to carry me over Sunday. 
Chad will bring, with your permission, the 
extra pair of andirons you spoke of." Or, 
" Kindly hand Chad the two magazines 
and a corkscrew." 

Of course Chad always tucked them 



4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

under his arm, and carried them away, for 
nobody ever refused the colonel anything 
— nobody who loved him. As for himself, 
he would have been equally generous in 
return, and have emptied his house, and 
even his pocketbook, in my behalf, had that 
latter receptacle been capable of further 
effort. Should this have been temporarily 
overstrained, — and it generally was, — he 
would have promptly borrowed the amount 
of the nearest friend, and then have rubbed 
his hands and glowed all day with delight 
at being able to relieve my necessity. 

"I am a Virginian, suh. Command me," 
was his way of putting it. 

So to-night I pushed open the swinging 
door, felt my way along the dark passage, 
and crossed the small yard choked with 
snow at the precise minute when the two 
hands of the great clock in the tall tower 
pointed to six. 

The door was opened by Chad. 

*' Walk right in, suh ; de colonel 's in de 
dinin'-room." 

Chad was wrong. The colonel was at 
that moment finishing his toilet upstairs, 
in what he was pleased to call his "dress- 
ing-room," his cheery voice announcing 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 5 

that fact over the balusters as soon as he 
heard my own, coupled with the additional 
information that he would be down in five 
minutes. 

What a cosy charming interior, this din- 
ing-room of the colonel's ! It had once 
been two rooms, and two very small ones at 
that, divided by folding doors. From out 
the rear one there had opened a smaller 
room answering to the space occupied by 
the narrow hall and staircase in front. All 
the interior partitions and doors dividing 
these three rooms had been knocked away 
at some time in its history, leaving an L 
interior having two windows in front and 
three in the rear. 

Some one of its former occupants, more 
luxurious than the others, had paneled the 
walls of this now irregular-shaped apart- 
ment with a dark wood running half way 
to the low ceiling badly smoked and black- 
ened by time, and had built two fireplaces 
— an open wood fire which laughed at me 
from behind my own andirons, and an old- 
fashioned English grate set into the chim- 
ney with wide hobs — convenient and nec- 
essary for the various brews and mixtures 
for which the colonel was famous. 



6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Midway, equally warmed by both fires, 
stood the table, its centre freshened by a 
great dish of celery white and crisp, with 
covers for three on a snow-white cloth re- 
splendent in old India blue, while at each 
end shone a pair of silver coasters, — heir- 
looms from Carter Hall, — one holding a 
cut-glass decanter of Madeira, the other 
awaiting its customary bottle of claret. 

On the hearth before the wood fire 
rested a pile of plates, also India blue, and 
on the mantel over the grate stood a row 
of bottles adapting themselves, like all good 
foreigners, to the rigors of our climate. 
Add a pair of silver candelabra with can- 
dles, — the colonel despised gas, — dark 
red curtains drawn close, three or four easy 
chairs, a few etchings and sketches loaned 
from my studio, together with a modest 
sideboard at the end of the L, and you 
have the salient features of a room so in- 
viting and restful that you wanted life 
made up of one long dinner, continually 
serv^ed within its hospitable walls. 

But I hear the colonel calling down the 
back stairs : — 

" Not a minute over eighteen, Chad. 
You ruined those ducks last Sunday." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville y 

The next moment he had me by both 
hands. 

'' My dear Major, I am pa'alized to think 
I kep' you waitin'. Just up from my office. 
Been workin' like a slave, suh. Only five 
minutes to dress befo' dinner. Have a 
drop of sherry and a dash of bitters, or 
shall we wait for Fitzpatrick } No } All 
right ! He should have been here befo' 
this. You don't know Fitz } Most extraor- 
d'nary man ; a great mind, suh ; literature, 
science, politics, finance, everything at 
his fingers' ends. He has been of the 
greatest service to me since I have been 
in New York in this railroad enterprise, 
which I am happy to say is now reachin' a 
culmination. You shall hear all about it 
after dinner. Put yo' body in that chair 
and yo' feet on the fender — my fire and 
yo' fender ! No, Fitz's fender and yo' and- 
irons ! Charmin' combination ! " 

It is always one of my delights to watch 
the colonel as he busies himself about the 
room, warming a big chair for his guests, 
punching the fire, brushing the sparks from 
the pile of plates, and testing the tempera- 
ture of the claret lovingly with the palms 
of his hands. 



8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

He. is perhaps fifty years of age, tall and 
slightly built. His iron gray hair is brushed 
straight back from his forehead, overlap- 
ping his collar behind. His eyes are deep- 
set and twinkling ; nose prominent ; cheeks 
slightly sunken ; brow wide and high ; and 
chin and jaw strong and marked. His 
moustache droops over a firm, well -cut 
mouth and unites at its ends with a gray 
goatee which rests on his shirt front. 

Like most Southerners living away from 
great cities his voice is soft and low, and 
tempered with a cadence that is delicious. 

He wears a black broadcloth coat, — a 
double - breasted garment, — with similar 
colored waistcoat and trousers, a turn-down 
collar, a shirt of many plaits which is un- 
der-starched and over-wrinkled but always 
clean, large cuffs very much frayed, a nar- 
row black or white tie, and low shoes with 
white cotton stockings. 

This black broadcloth coat, by the way, 
is quite the most interesting feature of the 
colonel's costume. So many changes are 
constantly made in its general make-up 
that you never quite believe it is the same 
ill-buttoned, shiny garment until you be- 
come familiar with its possibilities. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville g 

When the colonel has a funeral or other 
serious matter on his mind, this coat is 
buttoned close up under his chin showing 
only the upper edge of his white collar, his 
gaunt throat and the stray end of a black 
cravat. When he is invited to dinner he 
buttons it lower down, revealing as well a 
bit of his plaited shirt, and when it is a 
wedding this old stand-by is thrown wide 
open discovering a stiff, starched, white 
waistcoat with ivory buttons and snowy 
neck-cloth. 

These several make-ups used once to 
surprise me, and I often found myself in- 
sisting that the looseness and grace with 
which this garment flapped about the colo- 
nel's thin legs was only possible in a brand- 
new coat having all the spring and light- 
ness of youth in its seams, I was always 
mistaken. I had only to look at the mis- 
mated buttons and the raveled edge of the 
lining fringing the tails. It was the same 
coat. 

The colonel wore to-night the lower- 
button style with the white tie. It was 
indeed the adjustment of this necessary 
article which had consumed the five min- 
utes passed in his dressing-room, shghtly 



lo Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

lengthened by the time necessary to trim 
his cuffs — a little nicety which he rarely 
overlooked and which it mortified him to 
forget. 

What a frank, generous, tender-hearted 
fellow he is : happy as a boy ; hospitable 
to the verge of beggary ; enthusiastic as 
he is visionary ; simple as he is genuine. 
A Virginian of good birth, fair education, 
and limited knowledge of the world and 
of men, proud of his ancestry, proud of 
his State, and proud of himself ; believing 
in states' rights, slavery, and the Confed- 
eracy ; and away down in the bottom of 
his soul still clinging to the belief that 
the poor white trash of the earth includes 
about everybody outside of Fairfax County. 

With these antecedents it is easy to see 
that his ** reconstruction " is as hopeless 
as that of the famous Greek frieze, out- 
wardly whole and yet always a patchwork. 
So he chafes continually under what he 
believes to be the tyranny and despotism 
of an undefined autocracy, which, in a gen- 
eral way, he calls *' the Government," but 
which really refers to the distribution of 
certain local offices in his own immediate 
vicinity. 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 1 1 

When he hands you his card it bears 
this unabridged inscription : — 

Colonel George Fairfax Carter, 
of Carter Hall, 

Cartersville, Virginia. 

He omits " United States of America," 
simply because it would add nothing to his 
identity or his dignity. 

"There's Fitz," said the colonel as a 
sharp double knock sounded at the outer 
gate ; and the next instant a stout, thick- 
set, round-faced man of forty, with merry, 
bead-like eyes protected by big-bowed 
spectacles, pushed open the door, and 
peered in good-humoredly. 

The colonel sprang forward and seized 
him by both shoulders. 

" What the devil do you mean, Fitz, by 
comin' ten minutes late ? Don't you know, 
suh, that the burnin' of a canvasback is a 
crime ? 

" Stuck in the snow .? Well, I '11 forgive 
you this once, but Chad won't. Give me 
yo' coat — bless me ! it is as wet as a setter 
dog. Now put yo' belated carcass into 
this chair which I have been warmin' for 
you, right next to my dearest old friend, 



12 Colonel Carter of Carfersville 

the Major. Major, Fitz! — Fitz, the 
Major ! Take hold of each other. Does 
my heart good to get you both together. 
Have you brought a copy of the prospectus 
of our railroad } You know I want the 
Major in with us on the groun' flo'. But 
after dinner — not a w^ord befo'." 

This railroad was the colonel's only hope 
for the impoverished acres of Carter Hall, 
but lately saved from foreclosure by the 
generosity of his aunt, Miss Nancy Carter, 
who had redeemed it with almost all her 
savings, the house and half of the outly- 
ing lands being, thereupon, deeded to her. 
The other half reverted to the colonel. 

I explained to Fitz immediately after his 
hearty greeting that I was a humble land- 
scape painter, and not a major at all, having 
not the remotest connection with any mili- 
tary organization whatever ; but that the 
colonel always insisted upon surrounding 
himself with a staff, and that my promotion 
was in conformity with this habit. 

The colonel laughed, seized the poker, 
and rapped three times on the floor. A 
voice from the kitchen rumbled up : — 

" Comin', sah ! " 

It was Chad "dishin' the dinner " below, 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 13 



his explanations increasing in distinctness 
as he pushed the rear door open with his 
foot, — both hands being occupied with the 
soup tureen which he bore aloft and placed 
at the head of the table. 




In a. moment more he retired to the 
outer hall and reappeared brilliant in white 
jacket and apron. Then he ranged him- 
self behind the colonel's chair and with 
great dignity announced that dinner was 
served. 



14 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

"Come, Major! Fitz, sit where you 
can warm yo' back — you are not thawed 
out yet. One minute, gentlemen, — an old 
custom of my ancestors which I never 
omit." 

The blessing was asked with becoming 
reverence ; there was a slight pause, and 
then the colonel lifted the cover of the tu- 
reen and sent a savory cloud of incense to 
the ceiling. 

The soup was a cream of something with 
baby crabs. There was also a fish, — 
boiled, — with slices of hard boiled eggs 
fringing the dish, ovaled by a hedge of 
parsley and supplemented by a pyramid 
of potatoes with their jackets ragged as 
tramps. Then a ham, brown and crisp, and 
bristling all over with cloves. 

Then the ducks ! 

It was beautiful to see the colonel's face 
when Chad, with a bow like a folding jack- 
knife, held this dish before him. 

" Lay 'em here, Chad — right under my 
nose. Now hand me that pile of plates 
sizzlin' hot, and give that caarvin' knife a 
turn or two across the hearth. Major, dip 
a bit of celery in the salt and follow it with 
a mou'ful of claret. It will prepare yo' pal- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 75 

ate for the kind of food we raise gentlemen 
on down my way. See that red blood, 
suh, followin' the knife ! " 

*' Suit you, marsa ? " Chad never forgot 
his slave days. 

" To a turn, Chad, — I would n't take a 
thousand dollars for you," replied the colo- 
nel, relapsing as unconsciously into an old 
habit. 

It was not to be wondered at that the 
colonel loved a good dinner. To dine well 
was with him an inherited instinct ; one 
of the necessary preliminaries to all the 
important duties in life. To share with 
you his last crust was a part of his reli- 
gion ; to eat alone, a crime. 

"There, Major," said the colonel as 
Chad laid the smoking plate before me, " is 
the breast of a bird that fo' days ago was 
divin' for wild celery within fo'ty miles of 
Caarter Hall. My dear old aunt Nancy 
sends me a pair every week, bless her 
sweet soul ! Fill yo' glasses and let us 
drink to her health and happiness." Here 
the colonel rose from his chair : " Gentle- 
men, the best thing on this earth — a true 
Southern lady ! 

** Now, Chad, the red pepper." 



i6 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 




" No jelly, Colonel ? " said Fitz, with an 
eye on the sideboard. 

" Jelly ? No, suh ; not a suspicion of it. 
A pinch of salt, a dust of cayenne, then 
shut yo' eyes and mouth, and don't open 
them 'cept for a drop of good red wine. It 
is the salt marsh in the early mornin' that 
you are tastin', suh, — not molasses candy. 
You Nawtherners don't really treat a can- 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville ly 

vasback with any degree of respect. You 
ought never to come into his presence 
when he lies in state without takin' off yo' 
hats. That may be one reason why he 
skips over the Nawthern States when he 
takes his annual fall outin'." And he 
laughed heartily. 

" But you use it on venison } " argued 
Fitz. 

"Venison is diff'ent, suh. That game 
lives on moose buds, the soft inner bark of 
the sugar maple, and the tufts of sweet 
grass. There is a propriety and justice in 
his endin' his days smothered in sweets ; 
but the wild duck, suh, is bawn of the salt 
ice, braves the storm, and lives a life of 
peyil and hardship. You don't degrade a' 
oyster, a soft shell crab, or a clam with 
confectionery ; why a canvasback duck } 

" Now, Chad, serve coffee." • 

The colonel pushed back his chair, and 
opened a drawer in a table on his right, 
producing three small clay pipes with reed 
stems and a buckskin bag of tobacco. This 
he poured out on a plate, breaking the 
coarser grains with the palms of his hands, 
and filling the pipes with the greatest 
care. 



1 8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Fitz watched him curiously, and when he 
reached for the third pipe, said : — 

'' No, Colonel, none for me ; smoke a 
cigar — got a pocketful." 

" Smoke yo' own cigars, will you, and in 
the presence of a Virginian ? I don't be- 
lieve you have got a drop of Irish blood 
left in yo' veins, or you would take this 
pipe." 

'' Too strong for me," remonstrated Fitz. 

*' Throw that villainous device away, I 
say, Fitz, and surprise yo' nostrils with a 
whiff of this. Virginia tobacco, suh, — 
raised at Caartersville, — cured by my own 
servants. No ? Well, you will. Major. 
Here, try that ; every breath of it is a nose- 
gay," said the colonel, turning to me. 

" But, Colonel," continued Fitz, with a 
sly twinkle in his eye, " your tobacco pays 
no tax. With a debt like ours it is the 
duty of every good citizen to pay his share 
of it. Half the cost of this cigar goes to 
the Government." 

It was a red flag to the colonel, and he 
laid down his pipe and faced Fitz squarely. 

" Tax ! On our own productions, suh ! 
Raised on our own land ! Are you again 
forgettin' that you are an Irishman and 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ig 

becomin' one of these money-makin' Yan- 
kees ? Have n't we suffe'd enough — 
robbed of our property, our lands confis- 
cated, our slaves torn from us ; nothin' 
left but our honor and the shoes we stand 
in!" 

The colonel on cross-examination could 




not locate any particular wholesale robbery, 
but it did not check the flow of his indig- 
nation. 

*' Take, for instance, the town of Caarters- 
ville : look at that peaceful village which 
for mo' than a hundred years has enjoyed 
the privileges of free government ; and not 
only Caartersville, but all our section of 
the State." 



20 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" Well, what 's the matter with Carters- 
ville ? " asked Fitz, lighting his cigar. 

" Mattah, suh ! Just look at the degra- 
dation it fell into hardly ten years ago. A 
Yankee jedge jurisdictin' our laws, a Yan- 
kee sheriff enfo'cin' 'em, and a Yankee 
postmaster distributin' letters and sellin' 
postage stamps." 

*' But they were elected all right, Colo- 
nel, and represented the will of the peo- 
ple." 

" What people } Yo' people, not mine. 
No, my dear Fitz ; the Administration 
succeeding the war treated us shamefully, 
and will go down to postehity as infa- 
mous." 

The colonel here left his chair and began 
pacing the floor, his indignation rising at 
every step. 

" To give you an idea, suh," he contin- 
ued, *' of what we Southern people suffe'd 
immediately after the fall of the Confeder- 
acy, let me state a case that came under 
my own observation. 

" Colonel Temple Talcott of F'okeer 
County, Virginia, came into Talcottville 
one mornin', suh, — a town settled by his 
ancestors, — ridin' upon his horse — or 



Colojiel Carter of Cartersville 21 

rather a mule belongin' to his overseer. 
Colonel Talcott, suh, belonged to one of 
the vehy fust families in Virginia. He 
was a son of Jedge Thaxton Talcott, and 
grandson of General Snowden Stafford 
Talcott of the Revolutionary War. Now, 
suh, let me tell you right here that the 
Talcott blood is as blue as the sky, and 
that every gentleman bearin' the name is 
known all over the county as a man whose 
honor is dearer to him than his life, and 
whose word is as good as his bond. Well, 
suh, on this mornin' Colonel Talcott left 
his plantation in charge of his overseer, 
— he was workin' it on shares, — and rode 
through his- estates to his ancestral town, 
some five miles distant. It is true, suh, 
these estates were no longer in his name, 
but that had no bearin' on the events that 
followed ; he ought to have owned them, 
and would have done so but for some vehy 
ungentlemanly fo'closure proceedin's which 
occurred immediately after the war. 

" On arriving at Talcottville the colonel 
dismounted, handed the reins to his ser- 
vant, — or perhaps one of the niggers 
around the do', — and entered the post-of- 
fice. Now^ suh, let me tell you that one 



22 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

month befo', the Government, contrary to 
the express wishes of a great many of our 
leadin' citizens, had sent a Yankee post- 
master to Talcottville to administer the 
postal affairs of that town. No sooner had 
this man taken possession than he began 
to be exclusive, suh, and to put on airs. 
The vehy fust air he put on was to build a 
fence in his office and compel our people 
to transact their business through a hole. 
This in itself was vehy gallin', suh, for 
up to that time the mail had always been 
dumped out on the table in the stage office 
and every gentleman had he'ped himself. 
The next thing was the closin' of his mail 
bags at a' hour fixed by himself. This 
became a great inconvenience to our citi- 
zens, who were often late in finishin' their 
correspondence, and who had always found 
our former postmaster willin' either to hold 
the bag over until the next day, or to send 
it across to Drummondtown by a boy to 
catch a later train. 

"Well, suh. Colonel Talcott's mission to 
the post-office was to mail a letter to his 
factor in Richmond, Virginia, on business 
of the utmost importance to himself, — 
namely, the raisin' of a small loan upon 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 2^ 

his share of the crop. Not the crop that 
was planted, suh, but the crop that he ex- 
pected to plant. 

'* Colonel Talcott approached the hole, 
and with that Chesterfieldian manner which 
has distinguished the Talcotts for mo' than 
two centuries asked the postmaster for the 
loan of a three-cent postage stamp. 

"To his astonishment, suh, he was re- 
fused. 

" Think of a Talcott in his own county 
town bein' refused a three-cent postage 
stamp by a low-lived Yankee, who had 
never known a gentleman in his life ! The 
colonel's first impulse was to haul the 
scoundrel through the hole and caarve 
him ; but then he remembered that he 
was a Talcott and could not demean him- 
self, and drawin' himself up again with that 
manner which was grace itself he requested 
the loan of a three-cent postage stamp 
until he should communicate with his fac- 
tor in Richmond, Virginia ; and again he 
was refused. Well, suh, what was there 
left for a high-toned Southern gentleman 
to do .? Colonel Talcott drew his revolver 
and shot that Yankee scoundrel through 
the heart, and killed him on the spot. 



24 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" And now, suh, comes the most remark- 
able part of this story. If it had not been 
for Major Tom Yancey, Jedge Kerfoot, and 
myself there would have been a lawsuit." 

Fitz lay back in his chair and roared, 

''And they did not hang the colonel ?" 

" Hang a Talcott ! No, suh ; we don't 
hang gentlemen down our way. Jedge 
Kerfoot vehy properly charged the coro- 
ner's jury that it was a matter of self-de- 
fense, and Colonel Talcott was not de- 
tained mo' than haalf an hour." 

The colonel stopped, unlocked a closet 
in the sideboard, and produced a black 
bottle labeled in ink, " Old Cherry Bounce, 
1848." 

*' You must excuse me, gentlemen, but 
the discussion of these topics has quite un- 
nerved me. Allow me to share with you 
a thimbleful." 

Fitz drained his glass, cast his eyes up- 
ward, and said solemnly, " To the repose 
of the postmaster's soul." 



CHAPTER II 

The Garden Spot of Virginia seeks an Outlet 
to the Sea 

Chad was just entering the small gate 
which shut off the underground passage 
when I arrived opposite the colonel's cozy 
quarters. I had come to listen to the de- 
tails of that booming enterprise with the 
epidemic proclivities, the discussion of 
which had been cut short by the length of 
time it had taken to kill the postmaster 
the night before. 

It was quite evident that the colonel ex- 
pected guests, for Chad was groaning un- 
der a square wicker basket, containing, 
among other luxuries and necessities, half 
a dozen bottles of claret, a segment of 
cheese, and some heads of lettuce ; the 
whole surmounted by a clean leather-cov- 
ered pass-book inscribed with the name 
and avenue number of the confiding and 
accommodating grocer who supplied the 
colonel's daily wants. 



26 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

'' De colonel an' Misser Fizpat'ic bofe 
waitin' for you, sah," said that obsequious 
darky, preceding me through the dark pas- 
sage. I followed, mounted the old-fash- 
ioned wooden steps, and fell into the out- 




stretched arms of the colonel before I 
could touch the knocker. 

" Here he is, Fitz ! " and the next in- 
stant I was sharing with that genial gen- 
tleman the warmth of the colonel's fire. 

" Now then, Chad," called out the colo- 
nel, " take this lettuce and give it a dip 
in the snow for five minutes ; and here, 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 2j 

Chad, befo' you go hand me that claret. 
Bless my soul ! it is as cold as a dog's 
nose; Fitz, set it on the mantel. And 
hurry down to that mutton, Chad. Never 
mind the basket. Leave it where it is." 

Chad chuckled out to me as he closed 
the door : '' 'Spec' I know mo' 'bout dat 
saddle den de colonel. It ain't a-burnin' 
none." And the colonel, satisfied now 
that Chad's hand had reached the oven 
door below, made a vigorous attack on the 
blazing logs with the tongs, and sent a 
flight of sparks scurrying up the chimney. 

There was always a glow and breeze and 
sparkle about the colonel's fire that I found 
nowhere else. It partook to a certain ex- 
tent of his personality — open, bright, and 
with a great draft of enthusiasm always 
rushing up a chimney of difficulties, buoyed 
up with the hope of the broad clear of the 
heaven of success above. 

"My fire," he once said to me, " is my 
friend ; and sometimes, my dear boy, when 
you are all away and Chad is out, it seems 
my only friend. After it talks to me for 
hours we both get sleepy together, and I 
cover it up with its gray blanket of ashes 
and then go to bed myself. Ah, Major! 



28 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

when you are gettin' old and have no wife 
to love you and no children to make yo' 
heart glad, a wood fire full of honest old 
logs, every one of which is doing its best 
to please you, is a great comfort." 

" Draw closer. Major ; vehy cold night, 
gentlemen. We do not have any such 
weather in my State. Fitz, have you 
thawed out yet } " 

Fitz looked up from a pile of documents 
spread out on his lap, his round face aglow 
with the firelight, and compared himself to 
half a slice of toast well browned on both 
sides. 

*' I am glad of it. I was worried about 
you when you came in. You were chilled 
through." 

Then turning to me : '* Fact is, Fitz is 
a little overworked. Enormous strain, suh, 
on a man solving the vast commercial prob- 
lems that he is called upon to do every day." 

After which outburst the colonel crossed 
the room and finished unpacking the 
basket, placing the cheese in one of the 
empty plates on the table, and the various 
other commodities on the sideboard. When 
he reached the pass-book he straightened 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 2g 

himself up, held it off admiringly, turned 
the leaves slowly, his face lighting up at 
the goodly number of clean pages still be- 
tween its covers, and said thoughtfully : — 

" Very beautiful custom, this pass-book 
system, gentlemen, and quite new to me. 
One of the most co'teous attentions I have 
received since I have taken up my resi- 
dence Nawth. See how simple it is. I 
send my servant to the sto' for my sup- 
plies. He returns in haalf an hour with 
everything I need, and brings back this 
book which I keep, — remember, gentlemen, 
which I kee/>, — a mark of confidence which 
in this degen'rate age is refreshin'. No 
vulgar bargainin', suh ; no disagreeable re- 
marks about any former unsettled account. 
It certainly is delightful." 

" When are the accounts under this sys- 
tem generally paid. Colonel," asked Fitz. 

With the exception of a slight tremor 
around the corners of his mouth Fitz's face 
expressed nothing but the idlest interest. 

" I have never inquired, suh, and would 
not hurt the gentleman's feelin's by doin' 
so for the world," he replied with dignity. 
" I presume, when the book is full." 

Whatever might have been Fitz's men- 



^o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

tal workings, there was no mistaking the 
colonel's. He believed every word he said. 

" What a dear old trump the colonel is," 
said Fitz, turning to me, his face wrin- 
kling all over with suppressed laughter. 

All this time Chad was passing in and 
out, bearing dishes and viands, and when 
all was ready and the table candles were 
lighted, he announced that fact softly to 
his master and took his customary place 
behind his chair. 

The colonel was as delightful as ever, 
his talk ranging from politics and family 
blood to possum hunts and modern litera- 
ture, while the mutton and its accessories 
did full credit to Chad's culinary skill. 

In fact the head of the colonel's table 
was his throne. Nowhere else was he so 
charming, and nowhere else did the many 
sides to his delightful nature give out such 
varied hues. 

Fitz, practical business man as he was, 
would listen to his many schemes by the 
hour, charmed into silence and attentive 
appreciation by the sublime faith that sus- 
tained his host, and the perfect honesty 
and sincerity underlying everything he 
did. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 31 



But it was not until the cheese had com- 
pletely lost its geometrical form, the coffee 
served, and the pipes lighted, that the sub- 
ject which of all others absorbed him was 
broached. Indeed, it was a rule of the 
colonel's, never infringed upon, that, no 
matter how urgent the business, the din- 
ner-hour was to be kept sacred. 

"Salt yo' food, suh, with humor," he 
would say. " Season it with wit, and 
sprinkle it all over with the charm of good- 
fellowship, but never poison it with the 
cares of yo' life. It is an insult to yo' di- 
gestion, besides bein', suh, a mark of bad 
breedin'." 

" Now, Major," began the colonel, turn- 
ing to me, loosening the string around a 
package of papers, and spreading them out 
like a game of solitaire, ''draw yo* chair 
closer. Fitz, hand me the map." 

A diligent search revealed the fact that 
the map had been left at the ofhce, and so 
the colonel proceeded without it, appealing 
now and then to Fitz, who leaned over 
his chair, his arm on the table. 

"Befo' I touch upon the financial part 
of this enterprise. Major, let me show you 
where this road runs," said the colonel, 



^2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

reaching for the casters. " I am sorry I 
haven't the map, but we can get along 
very well with this ; " and he unloaded the 
cruets. 

" This mustard-pot, here, is Caarters- 
ville, the startin' -point of our system. 
This town, suh, has now a population of 
mo' than fo' thousand people ; in five 
years it will have fo'ty thousand. From 
this point the line follows the bank of the 
Big Tench River — marked by this caarv- 
in' - knife — to this salt-cellar, where it 
crosses its waters by an iron bridge of two 
spans, each of two hundred and fifty feet. 
Then, suh, it takes a sharp bend to the 
southard and stops at my estate, the road- 
bed skirtin' within a convenient distance 
of Caarter Hall. 

*' Please move yo' arm, Fitz. I have n't 
room enough to lay out the city of Fairfax. 
Thank you. 

"Just here," continued the colonel, util- 
izing the remains of the cheese, *' is to be 
the future city of Fairfax, named after my 
ancestor, suh. General Thomas Wilmot 
Fairfax of Somerset, England, who settled 
here in 1680. From here we take a course 
due nawth, stopping at Talcottville eight 



Colonel Carter of CartersviUe 33 

miles, and thence nawthwesterly to War- 
rentown and the broad Atlantic ; in all 
fifty miles." 

'' Any connecting road at Warrentown ? " 
I asked. 

" No, suh, nor anywhere else along the 
line. It is absolutely virgin country, and 
this is one of the strong points of the 
scheme, for there can be no competition ; " 
and the colonel leaned back in his chair, 
and looked at me with the air of a man 
who had just informed me of a legacy of 
half a million of dollars and was watching 
the effect of the news. 

I preserved my gravity, and followed the 
imaginary line with my eye, bounding 
from the mustard-pot along the carving- 
knife to the salt-cellar and back in a loop 
to the cheese, and then asked if the Big 
Tench could not be crossed higher up, and 
if so why was it necessary to build twelve 
additional miles of road. 

" To reach Carter Hall," said Fitz qui- 
etly. 

" Any advantage } " I asked in perfect 
good faith. 

The colonel was on his feet in a mo- 
ment. 



^4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" Any advantage ? Major, I am sur- 
prised at you ! A place settled mo' than 
one hundred years ago, belongin' to one of 
the vehy fust fam'lies of Virginia, not to 
be of any advantage to a new enterprise 
like this ! Why, suh, it will give an air of 
respectability to the whole thing that no- 
thin' else could ever do. Leave out Caar- 
ter Hall, suh, and you pa'alize the whole 
scheme. Am I not right, Fitz ? " 

*' Unquestionably, Colonel. It is really 
all the life it has," replied Fitz, solemn as 
a graven image, blowing a cloud of smoke 
through his nose. 

"And then, suh," continued the colonel 
with increasing enthusiasm, oblivious to 
the point of Fitz's remark, " see the im- 
provements. Right here to the eastward 
of this cheese we shall build a round-house 
marked by this napkin-ring, which will ac- 
commodate twelve locomotives, construct 
extensive shops for repairs, and erect large 
foundries and caar-shops. Altogether, suh, 
we shall expend at this point mo' than — 
mo' than — one miUion of dollars ; " and 
the colonel threw back his head and gazed 
at the ceiling, his lips computing imaginary 
sums. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ^5 

" Befo' these improvements are complete 
it will be necessary, of course, to take care 
of the enormous crowds that will flock in 
for a restin'-place. So to the left of this 
napkin-ring, on a slightly risin' ground, — 
just here where I raise the cloth, — is 
where the homes of the people will be 
erected. I have the refusal " — here the 
colonel lowered his voice — " of two thou- 
sand acres of the best private-residence 
land in the county, contiguous to this very 
spot, which I can buy for fo' dollars an 
acre. It is worth fo' dollars a square foot 
if it is worth a penny. But, suh, it would 
be little short of highway rob'ry to take 
this property at that figger, and I shall ar- 
range with Fitz to include in his prospec- 
tus the payment of one hundred dollars 
an acre for this land, payable either in the 
common stock of our road or in the notes of 
the company, as the owners may elect." 

" But, Colonel," said I, with a sincere 
desire to get at the facts, " where is the 
Golconda — the gold mine } Where do I 
come in .'' " 

"Patience, my dear Major; I am com- 
ing to that. 

"Fitz, read that prospectus." 



^6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" I have," said Fitz, turning to the colo- 
nel, " somewhat modified your rough draft, 
to meet the requirements of our market ; 
but not materially. Of course I cannot 
commit myself to any fixed earning capa- 
city until I go over the ground, which we 
will do together shortly. But" — raising 
the candle to the level of his nose — " this 
is as near as I can come to your ideas 
with any hopes of putting the loan through 
here. I have, as you will see, left the title 
of the bond as you wished, although the 
issue is a novel one to our Exchange." 
Then turning to me: "This of course is 
only a preliminary announcement." 

THE CARTERSVILLE AND WARRENTOWN 
AIR LINE RAILROAD. 



The Garden Spot of Virgin-ia seeks an Outlet 
TO THE Sea. 



CAPITAL ONE MILLION OF DOLLARS, DIVIDED 
INTO 

50,000 Founders' shares at ... . $10.00 each 

5,000 Ordinary " " . . . . 100.00 " 



Bonded Debt for Purposes of Construction 

ONLY. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ^y 
One Million of Dollars 

IN 

1,000 First Mortgage Bonds of $1000.00 each. 



Full Protection guaranteed. 



The undersigned, Messrs offer for 

sale $500,000.00 of the 6% Deferred Debenture Bonds 
of the C. & W. Air Line Railroad at par and accrued 
interest, together with a limited amount of the ordinary 
shares at 50%. 



Subscription books close 

Promoters reserve the right to advance prices without 
further notice. 

" There, Major, is a prospectus that 
caarries conviction on its vehy face," said 
the colonel, reaching for the document. 

I complimented the eminent financier on 
his skill, and was about to ask him what it 
all meant, when the colonel, who had been 
studying it carefully, broke in with : — 

" Fitz, there is one thing you left out." 

*' Yes, I know, the name of the banker ; 
I have n't found him yet." 

" No, Fitz ; but the words, ' Subscrip- 
tions opened Simjiltaneously in New York, 
London, Ric/iinond,' and " — 

** Cartersville } " suggested Fitz. 



^8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

** Certainly, suh." 
" Any money in Cartersville ? " 
" No, suh, not much ; but we can sub- 
scribey can't we ? The name and influence 
of our leadin' citizens would give tone and 
dignity to any subscription list. Think of 
this, suh ! " and the colonel traced imagi- 
nary inscriptions on the back of Fitz's pros- 
pectus with his forefinger, voicing them as 
he went on : — 

The Hon. John Page Lownes, 

Member of the State Legislature . . i,ooo shares 
The Hon. I. B. Kerfoot, 

Jedge of the District Court of 

Fairfax County i,ooo shares 

Major Thomas C. Yancey, 

Late of the Confederate Army . . . 500 shares 

" These gentlemen are my friends, suh, 
and would do anythin' to obHge me." 

Fitz sharpened a lead pencil and without 
a word inserted the desired amendment. 

The colonel studied the document for 
another brief moment and struck another 
snag. 

" And, Fitz, what do you mean, by ' full 
protection guaranteed ' } " 

" To the bondholder, of course, — the 
man who pays the money." 



Colonel Carter of CartersvUle ^g 

" What kind of protection ? " 

" Why, the right to foreclose the mort- 
gage when the interest is not paid, of 
course," said Fitz, with a surprised look. 

" Put yo' pencil through that line, quick 
— none of that for me. This fo'closure 
business has ruined haalf the gentlemen 
in our county, suh. But for that foolish- 
ness two thirds of our fust families would 
still be livin' in their homes. No, suh, 
strike it out ! " 

*' But, my dear Colonel, without that pro- 
tecting clause you couldn't get a banker 
to touch your bonds with a pair of tongs. 
What recourse have they .'* " 

" What reco'se } Reorganization, suh ! 
A boilin'-down process which will make 
the stock — which we practically give away 
at fifty cents on the dollar — twice as val- 
uable. I appreciate, my dear Fitz, the ef- 
fo'ts which you are makin' to dispose of 
these secu'ities, but you must remember 
that this plan is utine. 

" Now Major," locking his arm in mine, 
" listen ; for I want you both to under- 
stand exactly the way in which I propose 
to forward this enterprise. Chad, bring 
me three wine-glasses and put that Ma- 



40 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

deira on the table — don't disturb that rail- 
road ! — so. 

" My idea, gentlemen," continued the 
colonel, filling the glasses himself, ''is to 
start this scheme honestly in the beginnin', 
and avoid all dissatisfaction on the part of 
these vehy bondholders thereafter. • 

" Now, suh, in my experience I have al- 
ways discovered that a vehy general dissat- 
isfaction is sure to manifest itself if the 
coupons on secu'ities of this class are not 
paid when they become due. As a gen'ral 
rule this interest money is never earned 
for the fust two years, and the money to 
pay it with is inva'ably stolen from the 
principal. All this dishonesty I avoid, suh, 
by the issue of my Deferred Debenture 
Bonds." 

" How .? " I asked, seeing the colonel 
pause for a reply. 

"By cuttin' off the fust fo' coupons. 
Then everybody knows exactly where they 
stand. They don't expect anythin' and 
they never get it." 

Fitz gave one of his characteristic roars 
and asked if the fifth would ever be paid. 

" I can't at this moment answer, but we 
hope it will." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 41 

" It is immaterial," said Fitz, wiping his 
eyes. " This class of purchasers are all 
speculators, and like excitement. The 
very uncertainty as to this fifth coupon 
gives interest to the investment, if not to 
the investor." 

" None of yo' Irish impudence, suh. No, 
gentlemen, the plan is not only fair, but 
reasonable. Two years is not a long period 
of time in which to foster a great enter- 
prise like the C. & W. A. L. R. R., and it 
is for this purpose that I issue the Deferred 
Debentures. Deferred — put off ; Deben- 
ture — owed. What we owe we put off. 
Simple, easily understood, and honest. 

" Now, suh," turning to Fitz, " if after 
this frank statement any graspin' banker 
seeks to trammel this enterprise by any 
fo'closure clauses, he sha'n't have a bond, 
suh. I '11 take them all myself fust." 

Fitz agreed to the striking out of all 
such harassing clauses, and the colonel 
continued his inspection. 

" One mo' and I am done, Fitz. What 
do you mean by Founders' shares ? " 

" Shares for the promoters and the first 
subscribers. They cost one tenth of the 
ordinary shares and draw five times as 



42 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

much dividend. It is quite a popular form 
of investment. They, of course, are not 
sold until all the bonds are disposed of." 

" How many of these Founders' shares 
are there } " 

*' Fifty thousand at ten dollars each." 

The colonel paused a moment and com- 
muned inwardly with himself. 

'* Put me down for twenty-five thousand, 
Fitz. Part cash, and the balance in such 
po'tion of my estate as will be required for 
the purposes of the road." 

The colonel did not specify the propor- 
tions, but Fitz made a pencil memorandum 
on the margin of the prospectus with the 
same sort of respectful silence he would 
have shown the Rothschilds in a similar 
transaction, while the colonel refilled his 
glass and held it between his nose and the 
candle. 

" And now. Major, what shall we reserve 
for you } " said he, laying his hand on my 
shoulder. Before I could reply Fitz raised 
his finger, looked at me significantly over 
the rims of his spectacles, and said : — 

'' With your permission, Colonel, the 
Major and I will divide the remaining 
twenty-five thousand between ourselves." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 43 

Then seeing my startled look, " I will 
give you ample notice, Major, before the 
first partial payment is called in." 

" You overwhelm me, gentlemen," said 
the colonel, rising from his seat and seizing 
us by the hands." It has been the dream 
of my life to have you both with me in this 
enterprise, but I had no idea it would be 
realized so soon. Fill yo' glasses and join 
me in a sentiment that is dear to me as 
my life, — 'The Garden Spot of Virginia 
in search of an Outlet to the Sea.' " 

Nothing could have been more exhilarat- 
ing than the colonel's manner after this. 
His enthusiasm became so contagious that 
I began to feel something like a millionaire 
myself, and to wonder whether this were 
not the opportunity of my life. Fitz was 
so far affected that he recanted to a cer- 
tain extent his disbelief in the omission of 
the foreclosure clause, and even expressed 
himself as being hopeful of getting around 
it in some way. 

As for the colonel, the railroad was to 
him already a fixed fact. He could really 
shut his eyes at any time and hear the 
whistle of the down train nearing the 
bridge over the Tench. Such trifling de- 



44 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 



tails as the finding of a banker who would 
attempt to negotiate the loan, the subse- 
quent selling of the securities, and the 
minor items of right of way, construction, 
etc., were matters so light and trivial as not 
to cause him a moment's uneasiness. Car- 
tersville was to him the centre of the earth, 
hampered and held back by lack of proper 
connections with the outlying portions of 
the universe. What mattered the rest ? 

" Make a memorandum, Fitz, to have 
me send for a bridge engineer fust thing 
after I get to my office in the mornin'. 
There will be some difficulty in gettin' a 
proper foundation for the centre-pier of 
that bridge, and some one should be sent 
at once to make a survey. We can't be 
delayed at this point a day. And, Fitz, 
while I think of it, there should be a 
wagon bridge at or near this iron structure, 
and the timber might as well be gotten out 
now. It will facilitate haulin' supplies into 
Fairfax city." 

Fitz thought so too, and made a second 
memorandum to that effect, recording the 
suggestion very much as a private secre- 
tary would an order from his railroad mag- 
nate. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ^5 



The colonel gave this last order with 
coat thrown open, — thumbs in his vest, — 
back to the fire, — an attitude never in- 
dulged in except on rare occasions, and 
then only when the very weight of the 
problem necessitated a corresponding bra- 
cing up, and more breathing room. 

These attitudes, by the way, were very 
suggestive of the colonel's varying moods. 
Sometimes, when he came home, tired out 
with the hard pavements of the city, so 
different from the soft earth of his native 
roads, I would find him bunched up in his 
chair in the twilight ; face in hands, el- 
bows on knees, crooning over the fire, the 
silver streaks in his hair glistening in the 
flickering firelight, building castles in the 
glowing coals, — the old manor house re- 
stored and the barns rebuilt, the gates re- 
hung, the old quarters repaired, the little 
negroes again around the doors ; and he 
once more catching the sound of the yel- 
low-painted coach on the gravel, with Chad 
helping the dear old aunt down the porch 
steps. This, deep down in the bottom of 
his soul, was really the dream and purpose 
of his life. 

It never seemed nearer of realization 



46 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

than now. The very thought suffused his 
whole being with a suppressed joy, visible 
in his face even when he began loosening 
the two lower buttons of his old thread- 
bare coat, throwing back the lapels and 




slowly extending his fingers fan-like over 
his dilating chest. 

I always knew what suddenly sweetened 
his smile from one of triumphant pride to 
one of tenderness. 

" And the old home, Fitz, something 
must be done there ; we must receive our 
friends properly." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 4y 

Fitz agreed to everything, offering an 
amendment here, and a suggestion there, un- 
til our host's enthusiasm reached fever heat. 

It was nearly midnight before the colo- 
nel had confided to Fitz all the pressing 
necessities of the coming day. Even then 
he followed us both to the door, with part- 
ing instructions to Fitz, saying over and 
over again that it had been the happiest 
night of his life. And he would have gone 
bare-headed to the outer gate had not Chad 
caught him half way down the steps, thrown 
a coat over his head and shoulders, and 
gently led him back with : — 

"'Clar to goodness, Marsa George, what 
kind foolishness dis yer } Is you tryin' to 
ketch yo' death.?" 

Once on the outside and the gate shut, 
Fitz's whole manner changed. He became 
suddenly thoughtful, and did not speak un- 
til we reached the tall clock tower with its 
full moon of a face shining high up against 
the black winter night. 

Then he stood still, looked out over the 
white street, dotted here and there with 
belated wayfarers trudging home through 
the snow, and said with a tremor in his 
voice which startled me : — 



4S Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" I could n't raise a dollar in a lunatic 
asylum full of millionaires on a scheme 
like the colonel's, and yet I keep on lying 
to the dear old fellow day after day, hop- 
ing that something will turn up by which 
I can help him out." 

" Then tell him so." 

Fitz laid his hand on my shoulder, 
looked me straight in the face, and said: — 

'' I cannot. It would break his heart." 



CHAPTER III 

An Old Family Servant 

The colonel's front yard, while as quaint 
and old-fashioned as his house, was not — 
if I may be allowed — quite so well bred. 

This came partly from the outdoor life 
it had always led and from its close asso- 
ciation with other yards that had lost all 
semblance of respectability, and partly 
from the fact that it had never felt the 
refining influences of the friends of the 
house ; for nobody ever lingered in the 
front yard who by any possibility could 
get into the front door — nobody, except 
perhaps now and then a stray tramp, who 
felt at home at once and went to sleep on 
the steps. 

That all this told upon its character and 
appearance was shown in the remnants of 
whitewash on the high wall, scaling off in 
discolored patches ; in the stagger of the 
tall fence opposite, drooping like a drunk- 
ard between two policemen of posts ; and 



^o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

in the unkempt, bulging rear of the third 
wall, — the front house, — stuffed with 
rags and tied up with clothes-lines. 

If in the purity of its youth it had ever 
seen better days as a garden — but then 
no possible stretch of imagination, however 
brilliant, could ever convert this miserable 
quadrangle into a garden. 

It contained, of course, as all such yards 
do, one lone plant, — this time a honey- 
suckle, — which had clambered over the 
front door and there rested as if content to 
stay ; but which later on, frightened at the 
surroundings, had with one great spring 
cleared the sHppery wall between, reached 
the rain-spout above, and by its helping 
arm had thus escaped to the roof and the 
sunlight. 

It is also true that high up on this same 
wall there still clung the remains of a criss- 
cross wooden trellis supporting the shiver- 
ing branches of an old vine, which had 
spent its whole life trying to grow high 
enough to look over the tall fence into the 
yard beyond ; but this was so long ago 
that not even the landlord remembered the 
color of its blossoms. 

Then there was an old-fashioned hy- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 5/ 

drant, with a half-spiral crank of a handle 
on its top and the curved end of a lead 
pipe always aleak thrust through its rotten 
side, with its little statues of ice all winter 
and its spattering slop all summer. 

Besides all this there were some broken 
flower-pots in a heap in one corner, — sui- 
cides from the window-sills above, — and 
some sagging clothes-lines, and a battered 
watering-pot, and a box or two that might 
once have held flowers ; and yet with all 
this circumstantial evidence against me I 
cannot conscientiously believe that this 
forlorn courtyard ever could have risen to 
the dignity of a garden. 

But of course nothing of all this can be 
seen at night. At night one sees only the 
tall clock tower of Jefferson Market with 
its one blazing eye glaring high up over 
the fence, the little lantern hung in the 
tunnel, and the glow through the curtains 
shading the old-fashioned windows of the 
house itself, telling of warmth and comfort 
within. 

To-night when I pushed open the swing- 
ing door — the door of the tunnel entering 
from the street — the lantern was gone, 
and in its stead there was only the glim- 



52 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

mer of a mysterious light moving about the 
yard, — a light that fell now on the bare 
wall, now on the front steps, making 
threads of gold of the twisted iron railings, 
then on the posts of the leaning fence, 
against which hung three feathery objects, 
— grotesque and curious in the changing 
shadows, — and again on some barrels and 
boxes surrounded by loose straw. 

Following this light, in fact, guiding it, 
was a noiseless, crouching figure peering 
under the open steps, groping around the 
front door, creeping beneath the windows ; 
moving uneasily with a burglar-like tread. 

I grasped my umbrella, advanced to the 
edge of the tunnel, and called out : — 

"Who's that.?" 

The figure stopped, straightened up, held 
a lantern high over its head, and peered 
into the darkness. 

There was no mistaking that face. 

"Oh, that's you, Chad, is it.? What 
the devil are you doing .? " 

" Lookin' for one ob dese yer tar'pins 
Miss Nancy sent de colonel. Dey was 
seben ob 'em in dis box, an' now dey ain't 
but six. Hole dis light. Major, an' lemme 
fumble round dis rain-spout." 



Colonel Carter of CartersvHle ^3 



Chad handed me the lantern, fell on his 
knees, and began crawling around the 




small yard like an old dog hunting for a 
possum, feeling in among the roots of the 



5^ Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

honeysuckle, between the barrels that had 
brought the colonel's china from Carter 
Hall, under the steps, way back where 
Chad kept his wood ashes — but no '' brer 
tar'pin." 

*' Well, if dat don't beat de Ian' ! Dey 
was two ba'els — one had dat wild turkey 
an' de pair o' geese you see hangin' on de 
fence dar, an' de udder ba'el I jest ca'aed 
down de cellar full er oishters. De tar'pins 
was in dis box — seben ob 'em. Spec' dat 
rapscallion crawled ober de fence ? " And 
Chad picked up the basket with the re- 
maining half dozen, and descended the 
basement steps on his way through the 
kitchen to the front door above. Before 
he reached the bottom step I heard him 
break out with : — 

" Oh, yer you is, you black debbil ! 
Tryin' to git in de door, is ye } De pot is 
whar you '11 git ! " 

At the foot of the short steps, flat on his 
back, head and legs wriggling like an over- 
turned roach, lay the missing terrapin. It 
had crawled to the edge of the opening and 
had fallen down in the darkness. 

Chad picked him up and kept on grum- 
bling, shaking his finger at the motionless 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 55 

terrapin, whose head and legs were now 
tight drawn between its shells. 

'' Gre't mine to squash ye ! Wearin' out 
my old knees lookin' for ye. Nebber mine, 
I 'm gwine to bile ye fust an' de longest — 
hear dat ? — de longest!" Then looking 
up at me, '' I got him. Major — try dat do'. 
Spec' it 's open. Colonel ain't yer yit. 
Reckon some ob dem moonshiners is 
keepin' him down town. 'Fo' I forgit it, 
dar's a letter for ye hangin' to de mantel- 
piece." 

The door and the letter were both 
open, the latter being half a sheet of pa- 
per impaled by a pin, which alone saved it 
from the roaring fire that Chad had just 
replenished. 

I held it to the light and learned, to my 
disappointment, that business of enormous 
importance to the C. & W. A. L. R. R. 
might preclude the possibility of the colo- 
nel's leaving his office until late. If such 
a calamity overtook him, would I forgive 
him and take possession of his house and 
cellar and make myself as comfortable as 1 
could with my best friend away .'* This 
postscript followed : — 

" Open the new Madeira ; Chad has the 
key." 



5^ Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Chad wreaked his vengeance upon the 
absconding terrapin by plunging him, with 
all his sins upon him, headlong into the 
boiling pot, and half an hour later was en- 
gaged at a side table in removing, with the 
help of an iron fork, the upper shell of the 
steaming vagabond, for my special comfort 
and sustenance. 

" Tar'pin jes like a crab, Major, on'y got 
mo' meat to 'em. But you got to know 
'em fust to eat 'em. Now dis yer shell is 
de hot plate, an' ye do all yo' eatin' right 
inside it," said Chad, dropping a spoonful 
of butter, the juice of a lemon, and a pinch 
of salt into the impromptu dish. 

" Now, Major, take yo' fork an' pick out 
all dat black meat an' dip it in de sauce, 
an' wid ebery mou'ful take one o' dem lit- 
tle yaller eggs. Dat 's de way we eat tar'- 
pin. Dis yer stewin' him up in pote wine 
is scand'lous. Can't taste nuffin' but de 
wine. But dat 's tar piny 

I followed Chad's directions to the word, 
picking the terrapin as I would a crab and 
smothering the dainty bits in the hot 
sauce, until only two empty shells and a 
heap of little bones were left to tell the 
tale of my appetite. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 57 

*' Gwine to crawl ober de fence, was ye ? " 
I heard him say with a chuckle as he bore 
away the debris. *' What I tell ye ? Whar 
am ye now ? " 

" Did Miss Nancy send those terrapin ? " 
I asked, watching the old darky drawing 
the cork of the new Madeira referred to in 
the colonel's note. 

''Ob co'se. Major; Miss Nancy gibs de 
colonel eberytin'. Did n't ye know dat ? 
She 's de on'y one what 's got anythin' to 
gib, an' she would n't hab dat on'y frough 
de war her money was in de bank in Bal- 
timo'. I know, 'cause I went dar once to 
git some for her. De Yankee soldiers 
searched me ; but some possums got two 
holes." 

" And did she send him the Madeira 
too.?" 

" No, sah ; Mister Grocerman gib him 
dat." 

As he pronounced this name his voice 
fell, and for some time thereafter he kept 
silent, brushing the crumbs away, replacing 
a plate or two, or filling my wine-glass, un- 
til at last he took his place behind my chair 
as was his custom with his master. It was 
easy to see that Chad had something on 
his mind. 



5<5 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Every now and then a sigh escaped him, 
which he tried to conceal by some irrele- 
vant remark, as if his sorrow were his own 
and not to be shared with a stranger. Fi- 
nally he gave an uneasy glance around, 
and, looking into my face with an expres- 
sion of positive pain, said : — 

'* Don't tell de colonel I axed, but when 
is dis yer railroad gwineter fotch some 
money in ? " 

*'Why ? " said I, wondering what extrav- 
agance the old man had fallen into. 

''Nuffin', sah ; but if it don't putty quick 
dar's gwineter be trouble. Dese yer gem- 
men on de av'nue is gittin' ugly. When I 
got dar Madary de udder day de tall one 
warn't gwineter gib it to me, pass-book or 
no pass-book. On'y de young one say 
he'd seen de colonel, an' he was a gem- 
men an' all right, I would n't 'a' got it at 
all. De tall gem men was comin' right 
around hisself — what he wanted to see, 
he said, was de color ob de colonel's 
money. Been mo' den two months, an' 
not a cent. 

''Co'se I tole same as I been tellin' him, 
dat de colonel's folks is quality folks ; but 
he say dat don't pay de bills." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ^g 

*' Did you tell the colonel ? " 

" No, sah ; ain't no use tellin' de colo- 
nel ; on'y worry him. He 's got de pass- 
book, but I ain't yerd him say nuffin' yit 
'bout payin' him. I been spectin' Miss 
Nancy up here, an' de colonel says she 's 
comin' putty soon. She'll fix 'em; but 
dey ain't no time to waste." 

While he spoke there came a loud knock 
at the door, and Chad returned trembling 
with fear, his face the very picture of de- 
spair. 

" Dat 's de tall man hisself, sah, an' his 
dander 's up. I knowed dese Yankees in 
de war, an' I don't like 'em when dey 's ris'. 
When I tole him de colonel ain't home he 
look at me pizen-like, same as I was a-lyin' ; 
an' den he stop an' listen an' say he come 
back to-night. Trouble comin' ; old coon 
smells de dog. Wish we was home an' out 
ob dis ! " 

I tried to divert his attention into other 
channels and to calm his fears, assuring 
him that the colonel would come out all 
right ; that these enterprises were slow, 
etc. ; but the old man only shook his head. 

'' You know, Major, same as me, dat de 
colonel ain't nuffin' but a chile, an' about 



6o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

his bills he 's zv?iss. But I 'm yer, an' I 'm 
'sponsible. ' Chad,' he says, * go out an' 
git six mo' bottles of dat old Madary ; ' an' 

* Chad, don't forgit de sweet lie ; ' an* 

* Chad, is we got claret enough to last ober 
Sunday ? ' — an' not a cent in de house. I 
ain't slep' none for two nights, worritin' 
ober dis business, an' I 'm mos' crazy." 

I laid down my knife and fork and looked 
up. The old man's lip was quivering, and 
something very like a tear stood in each 
eye. 

'' I can't hab nufifin' happen to de fam- 
bly. Major. You know our folks is quality, 
an' always was, an' I dassent look my mis- 
tress in de face if anythin' teches Marsa 
George." Then bending down he said in 
a hoarse whisper : " See dat old clock out 
dar wid his eye wide open } Know what 
*s down below dat in de cellar } De jail ! " 
And two tears rolled down his cheeks. 

It was some time before I could quiet 
the old man's anxieties and coax him back 
into his usual good humor, and then only 
when I began to ask him of the old plan- 
tation days. 

Then he fell to talking about the colo- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 6i 



nel's father, Gen- 
eral John Carter, 
and the high days 
at Carter Hall 
when Miss Nan- 
cy was a young 
lady and the colo- 
nel a boy home 
from the univer- 
sity. 

"Dem was high 
times. We ain't 
neber seed no 
time like dat 
since de war. Git 
up in de mawnin' 
an' look out ober 
de lawn, an' yer 
come fo'teen or fifteen couples ob de fust- 
est quality folks, all on horseback ridin' in 
de gate. Den such a scuffiin' round ! Old 
marsa an' missis out on de po'ch, an' de lit- 
tle pickaninnies runnin' from de quarters, 
an' all hands helpin' 'em off de horses, an' 
dey all smokin' hot wid de gallop up de 
lane. 

" An' den sich a breakfast an' sich dan- 
cin' an' co'tin' ; ladies all out on de lawn in 




62 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

der white dresses, an' de gemmen in fair- 
top boots, an' Mammy Jane runnin' round 
same as a chicken wid its head off, — an' 
der heads was off befo' dey knowed it, an' 
dey a-br'ilin' on de gridiron. 

" Dat would go on a week or mo', an' den 
up dey '11 all git an' away dey 'd go to de 
nex' plantation, an' take Miss Nancy along 
wid 'em on her little sorrel mare, an' I on 
Marsa John's black horse, to take care bofe 
of 'em. Dem was times ! 

** My old marsa," — and his eyes ghs- 
tened, — " my old Marsa John was a gem- 
man, sah, like dey don't see nowadays. Tall, 
sah, an' straight as a cornstalk ; hair white 
an' silky as de tassel ; an' a voice hke de 
birds was singin', it was dat sweet. 

" ' Chad,' he use' ter say, — you know I 
was young den, an' I was his body servant, 

— ' Chad, come yer till I bre'k yo' head ; ' 
an' den when I come he 'd laugh fit to kill 
hisself. Dat 's when you do right. But 
when you was a low-down nigger an' got 
de debbil in yer, an' ole marsa hear it an' 
send de oberseer to de quarters for you to 
come to de little room in de big house whar 
de walls was all books an' whar his desk 
was, 't wa'n't no birds about his voice den, 

— mo' like de thunder." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 6^ 

'' Did he whip his negroes ? " 

" No, sah ; don't reckelmember a single 
lick laid on airy nigger dat de marsa knowed 
of ; but when dey got so bad — an' some 
niggers is dat way — den dey was sold to 
de swamp lan's. He would n't hab 'em 
round 'ruptin' his niggers, he use' ter say. 

'* Hab coffee, sah ? Won't take I a min- 
ute to bile it. Colonel ain't been drinkin' 
none lately, an' so I don't make none." 

I nodded my head, and Chad closed the 
door softly, taking with him a small cup 
and saucer, and returning in a few minutes 
followed by that most delicious of all aro- 
mas, the savory steam of boiling coffee. 

" My Marsa John," he continued, filling 
the cup with the smoking beverage, " never 
drank nuffin' but tea, eben at de big din- 
ners when all de gemmen had coffee in de 
little cups — dat 's one ob 'em you 's drink- 
in' out ob now ; dey ain't mo' dan fo' on 
'em left. Old marsa would have his pot 
ob tea : Henny use' ter make it for him ; 
makes it now for Miss Nancy. 

" Henny was a young gal den, long 'fo' 
we was married. Henny b'longed to Colo- 
nel Lloyd Barbour, on de next plantation 
to ourn. 



64 Colonel Carter of Cariersville 

''Mo' coffee, Major?" I handed Chad 
the empty cup. He refilled it, and went 
straight on without drawing breath. 

" Wust scrape I eber got into wid old 
Marsa John was ober Henny. I tell ye she 
was a harricane in dem days. She come 
into de kitchen one time where I was help- 
in' git de dinner ready an' de cook had gone 
to de spring house, an' she says : — 

" * Chad, what ye cookin' dat smells so 
nice } ' 

'"Dat's a goose,' I says, 'cookin' for 
Marsa John's dinner. We got quality,' 
says I, pointin' to de dinin'-room do'. 

" ' Quality ! ' she says. ' Spec' I know 
what de quality is. Dat 's for you an' de 
cook.' 

" Wid dat she grabs a caarvin' knife from 
de table, opens de do' ob de big oven, cuts 
off a leg ob de goose, an' dis'pears round de 
kitchen corner wid de leg in her mouf. 

"'Fo' I knowed whar I was Marsa John 
come to de kitchen do' an' says, ' Gittin' 
late, Chad ; bring in de dinner.' You see. 
Major, dey ain't no up an' down stairs in 
de big house, like it is yer ; kitchen an' 
dinin'-room all on de same flo'. 

" Well, sah, I was scared to def, but I 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 6^ 

tuk dat goose an' laid him wid de cut side 
down on de bottom of de pan 'fo' de cook 
got back, put some dressin' an' stuffin' ober 
him, an' shet de stove do'. Den I tuk de 
sweet potatoes an' de hominy an' put 'em 
on de table, an' den I went back in de 
kitchen to git de baked ham. I put on de 
ham an' some mo' dishes, an' marsa says, 
lookin' up : — 

" ' I t'ought dere was a roast goose, 
Chad ? ' 

" ' I ain't yerd nothin' 'bout no goose,' I 
says. ' I '11 ask de cook.' 

" Next minute I yerd old marsa a-holler- 
in' : — 

*' ' Mammy Jane, ain't we got a goose } ' 

'* * Lord-a-massy ! yes, marsa. Chad, you 
wu'thless nigger, ain't you tuk dat goose 
out yit } ' 

" * Is we got a goose } ' said I. 

" 'Is zve got a goose? Didn't you help 
pick it } ' 

'' I see whar my hair was short, an' I 
snatched up a hot dish from de hearth, 
opened de oven do', an' slide de goose in 
jes as he was, an' lay him down befo' Marsa 
John. 

" ' Now see what de ladies '11 have for 



66 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

dinner,' says old marsa, pickin' up his caar- 
vin' knife, 

" ' What '11 you take for dinner, miss ? ' 
says I. ' Baked ham ? ' 

" ' No/ she says, lookin' up to whar 
Marsa John sat ; * I think I '11 take a leg 
ob dat goose' — jes so. 

" Well, marsa cut off de leg an' put a lit- 
tle stufBn' an' gravy on wid a spoon, an' 
says to me, ' Chad, see what dat gemman 
'11 have.' 

*' ' What '11 you take for dinner, sah ? ' 
says I. ' Nice breast o' goose, or slice o' 
ham > ' 

" ' No ; I think I '11 take a leg of dat 
goose,' he says. 

" I did n't say nuffin', but I knovved bery 
well he wa'n't a-gwine to git it. 

"But, Major, you oughter seen ole marsa 
lookin' for der udder leg ob dat goose ! He 
rolled him ober on de dish, dis way an' dat 
way, an' den he jabbed dat ole bone-han- 
dled caarvin' fork in him an' hel' him up 
ober de dish an' looked under him an' on 
top ob him, an' den he says, kinder sad 
like : — 

" ' Chad, whar is de udder leg ob dat 
goose ? ' 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 6y 



" ' It did n't hab none,' says I. 

" ' You mean ter say, Chad, dat de 
gooses on my plantation on'y got one 
leg?' 

"*Some ob 'em has an' some ob 'em 
ain't. You see, marsa, we got two kinds 
in de pond, an' we was a little boddered to- 
day, so Mammy Jane cooked dis one 'cause 
I cotched it fust.' 

*''Well,' said he, lookin' like he look 
when he send for you in de little room, 
* I '11 settle wid ye after dinner.' 

*' Well, dar I was shiverin' an' shakin' in 
my shoes, an' droppin' gravy an' spillin' de 
wine on de table-cloth, I was dat shuck up ; 
an' when de dinner was ober he calls all de 
ladies an' gemmen, an' says, 'Now come 
down to de duck pond. I 'm gwineter show 
dis nigger dat all de gooses on my planta- 
tion got mo' den one leg.' 

"I followed 'long, trapesin' after de 
whole kit an' b'ilin', an' when we got to de 
pond" — here Chad nearly went into a 
convulsion with suppressed laughter — 
"dar was de gooses sittin' on a log in de 
middle of dat ole green goose-pond wid 
one leg stuck down — so — an' de udder 
tucked under de wing." 



68 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Chad was now on one leg, balancing 
himself by my chair, the tears running 
down his cheeks. 

" * Dar, marsa,' says I, ' don't ye see ? 
Look at dat ole gray goose ! Dat 's de 
berry match ob de one we had to-day.' 

*' Den de ladies all hollered an' de gem- 
men laughed so loud dey yerd 'em at de 
big house. 

*'*Stop, you black scoun'rel ! ' Marsa 
John says, his face gittin' white an' he 
a-jerkin' his handkerchief from his pocket. 
' Shoo ! ' 

*' Major, I hope to have my brains kicked 
out by a lame grasshopper if ebery one ob 
dem gooses did n't put down de udder 
leg! 

" ' Now, you lyin' nigger,' he says, raisin' 
his cane ober my head, ' I '11 show you ' — 

" ' Stop, Marsa John ! ' I hollered ; ' 't 
ain't fair, 't ain't fair.' 

" ' Why ain't it fair } ' says he. 

'"'Cause,' says I, 'you did n't say 
" Shoo ! " to d€ goose what was on de 
table.' " 1 

1 This story, and the story of the " Postmaster " in a 
preceding chapter, I have told for so many years and to 
so many people, and with such varied amplifications, that 
I have long since persuaded myself that they are crea- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 69 



Chad laughed until he choked. 
" And did he thrash you ? " 
''Marsa John? No, sah. He laughed 
loud as anybody ; an' den dat night he says 
to me as I was puttin' some wood on de 
fire : — 

'• ' Chad, where did dat leg go ? ' An' 
so I ups an' tells him all about Henny, an' 
how I was lyin' 'cause I was 'feared de gal 
would git hurt, an' how she was on'y a-fool- 
in', thinkin' it was my goose ; an' den de 
ole marsa look in de fire for a long time, 
an' den he says : — 

"*Dat 's Colonel Barbour's Henny, ain't 
it, Chad ? ' 

" 'Yes,' marsa, says I. 
"Well, de next mawnin' he had his black 
horse saddled, an' I held the stirrup for 
him to git on, an' he rode ober to de Bar- 
bour plantation, an' did n't come back till 
plumb black night. When he come up I 
held de lantern so I could see his face, for 
I wa'n't easy in my mine all day. But 
it was all bright an' shinin' same as a' 
angel's. 

tions of my own. I surmise, however, that the basis of 
the " Postmaster " can be found in the corner of some 
forgotten newspaper, and I know that the " One-Legged 
Goose " is as old as the " Decameron." 



yo Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

** * Chad,' he says, handin' me de reins, 
*I bought yo' Henny dis arternoon from 
Colonel Barbour, an' she 's comin' ober to- 
morrow, an' you can bofe git married next 
Sunday.' " 

A cheerful voice at the yard door, and 
the next moment the colonel was stamping 
his feet on the hall mat, his first word to 
Chad an inquiry after my comfort, and his 
second an apology to me for what he called 
his brutal want of hospitality. 

"But I could n't help it. Major. I had 
some letters, suh, that could not be post- 
poned. Has Chad taken good care of 
you } No dinner, Chad ; I dined down 
town. How is the Madeira, Major.?" 

I expressed my entire approbation of the 
wine, and was about to fill the colonel's 
glass when Chad leaned over with the 
same anxious look in his face. 

'' De grocerman was here. Colonel, an' 
lef word dat he was comin' agin later." 

" You don't say so, Chad, and I was out : 
most unfortunate occurrence ! When he 
calls again show him in at once. It will 
give me great pleasure to see him." 

Then turning to me, his mind on the 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville yi 

passbook and its empty pages, — '* I '11 lay 
a wager, Major, that man's father was a 
gentleman. The fact is, I have not treated 
him with proper respect. He has shown 
me every courtesy since I have been here, 
and I am ashamed to say that I have not 
once entered his doors. His calling twice 
in one evening touches me deeply. I did 
not expect to find yo' tradespeople so po- 
lite." 

Chad's face was a study while his master 
spoke, but he was too well trained, and still 
too anxious over the outcome of the ex- 
pected interview, to do more than bow ob- 
sequiously to the colonel, — his invariable 
custom when receiving an order, — and to 
close the door behind him. 

''That old servant," continued the colo- 
nel, watching Chad leave the room, and 
drawing his chair nearer the fire, ''has 
been in my fam'ly ever since he was bawn. 
But for him and his old wife. Mammy 
Henny, I would be homeless to-night." 
And then the colonel, with that soft ca- 
dence in his voice which I always noticed 
when he spoke of something that touched 
his heart, told me with evident feelino; 
how, in every crisis of fire, pillage, and 



y2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

raid, these two faithful souls had kept un- 
ceasing watch about the old house ; refast- 
ening the wrenched doors, replacing the 
shattered shutters, or extinguishing the em- 
bers of abandoned bivouac fires. Indeed, 
for months at a time they were its only oc- 
cupants, outside of strolling marauders and 
bands of foragers, and but for their untir- 
ing devotion its tall chimneys would long 
since have stood like tombstones over the 
grave of its ashes. Then he added, with a 
break in his voice that told how deeply he 
felt it : — 

" Do you know. Major, that when I 
was a prisoner at City Point that darky 
tramped a hundred miles through the coast 
swamps to reach me, crossed both lines 
twice, hung around for three months for 
his chance, and has carried in his leg ever 
since the ball intended for me the night I 
escaped in his clothes, and he was shot in 
mine. 

" I tell you, suh, the color of a man's skin 
don't make much diffe'ence sometimes. 
Chad was bawn a gentleman, and he '11 
never get over it." 

As he was speaking, the object of his 
eulogy opened the hall door, and the next 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 7^ 

instant a tall, red-headed man with closely 
trimmed side-whiskers, and wearing a brown 
check suit and a blue necktie, ran the gaunt- 
let of Chad's profound but anxious bow, 
and advanced towards the colonel, hat in 
hand. 

"Which is Mr. Carter.?" 

The colonel arose gracefully. " I am 
Colonel Caarter, suh, and I presume you 
are the gentleman to whom I am indebted 
for so many courtesies. My servant tells 
me that you called earlier in the evenin'. 
I regret, suh, that I was detained so late 
at my office, and I have to thank you for 
perseve'in' the second time. I assure you, 
suh, that I esteem it a special honor." 

The tall gentleman with the auburn 
whiskers wiped his face with a handker- 
chief, which he took from his hat, and 
stated with some timidity that he hoped 
he did not intrude at that late hour. He 
had sent his pass-book, and — 

" I have looked it over, suh, repeatedly, 
with the greatest pleasure. It is a custom 
new to us in my county, but it meets 
with my hearty approval. Give yo' hat to 
my servant, suh, and take this seat by the 
fire." 



y4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

The proprietor of the hat after some 
protestations suffered Chad to bear away 
that grateful protection to his shghtly bald 
head, — retaining his handkerchief, which 
he finally rolled up into a little wad and 
kept tightly clenched in the perspiring palm 
of his left hand, — and then threw out the 
additional hope that everything was satis- 
factory. 

" Delicious, suh ; I have not tasted such 
Madeira since the wah. In my cellar at 
home, suh, I once had some old Madeira 
of '28 that was given to my father, the late 
General John Caarter, by old Judge Thorn- 
ton. You, of course, know that wine, suh. 
Ah ! I see that you do." 

And then followed one of the colonel's 
delightful monologues descriptive of all 
the vintages of that year, the colonel con- 
stantly appealing to the dazed and de- 
lighted groceryman to be set right in minor 
technical matters, — the grocer under- 
standing them as little as he did the Az- 
tec dialects, — the colonel himself supply- 
ing the needed data and then thanking 
the auburn gentleman for the information 
so charmingly that for the moment that 
worthy tradesman began to wonder why he 



Colonel Carter of Cartersvillc y^ 

had not long before risen from the com- 
monplace level of canned vegetables to the 
more sublime plane of wines in the wood. 

'* Now the Madeira you sent me this 
mornin', suh, is a trifle too fruity for my 
taste. Chad, open a fresh bottle." 

The owner of the pass-book instantly 
detected a very decided fruity fliavor, but 
thought he had another wine, which he 
would send in the morning, that might 
suit the colonel's palate better. 

The colonel thanked him, and then 
drifted into the wider field of domestic 
delicacies, — the preserving of fruits, the 
making of pickles as practiced on the plan- 
tations by the old Virginia cooks, — the 
colonel waxing eloquent over each produc- 
tion, and the future wine merchant becom- 
ing more and more enchanted as the colo- 
nel flowed on. 

When he rose to go the grocer had a 
mental list of the things he would send 
the colonel in the morning all arranged in 
his commercial head, and so great was his 
delight that, after shaking hands with me 
once and with the colonel three times, he 
would also have extended that courtesy to 
Chad had not that perfectly trained servant 



y6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

checkmated him by filling his extended 
palm with the rim of his own hat. 

When Chad returned from bowing him 




through the tunnel, the lines in his face a 
tangle of emotions, the colonel was stand- 
ing on the mat, in his favorite attitude — 
back to the fire, coat thrown open, thumbs 
in his armholes, his outstretched fingers 
beating woodpecker tattoos on his vest. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville yy 

Somehow the visit of the grocer had 
lifted him out of the cares of the day. 
How, he could not tell. Perhaps it was 
the fragrance of the Madeira ; perhaps the 
respectful, overawed bow, — the bow of 
the tradesman the world over to the landed 
proprietor, — restoring to him for one 
brief moment that old feudal supremacy 
which above all else his soul loved. Per- 
haps it was only the warmth and cheer 
and comfort of it all. 

Whatever it was, it buoyed and strength- 
ened him. He was again in the old din- 
ing - hall at home : the servants moving 
noiselessly about ; the cut-glass decanters 
reflected in the polished mahogany ; the 
candles lighted; his old, white - haired fa- 
ther, in his high-backed chair, sipping his 
wine from the slender glass. 

Ah, the proud estate of the old planta- 
tion days ! Would they ever be his again "i 



CHAPTER IV 

The Arrival of a True Southern Lady 

" Mistress yer, sah ! Come yistidd'y 
mawnin'." 

How Chad beamed all over when this 
simple statement fell from his lips ! 

I had not seen him since the night when 
he stood behind my chair and with bated 
breath whispered his anxieties lest the sec- 
ond advent of '' de grocerman " should 
bring dire destruction to the colonel's 
household. 

To-day he looked ten years younger. 
His kinky gray hair, generally knotted into 
little wads, was now divided by a well-de- 
fined path starting from the great wrinkle 
in his forehead and ending in a dense 
tangle of underbrush that no comb dared 
penetrate. His face glistened all over. 
His mouth was wide open, showing a great 
cavity in which each tooth seemed to dance 
with delight. His jacket was as white and 
stiff as soap and starch could make it, while 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville yg 

a cast-off cravat of the colonel's — double 
starched to suit Chad's own ideas of pro- 
priety — was tied in a single knot, the two 
ends reaching to the very edge of each ear. 
To crown all, a red carnation flamed away 
on the lapel of his jacket, just above an 
outside pocket, which held in check a pair 
of white cotton gloves bulging with im- 
portance and eager for use. Every time 
he bowed he touched with a sweep both 
sides of the narrow hall. 

It was the first time in some weeks that 
I had seen the interior of the colonel's 
cozy dining-room by daylight. Of late my 
visits had been made after dark, with drawn 
curtains, lighted candles, and roaring wood 
fires. But this time it was in the morn- 
ing, — and a bright, sunny, lovely spring 
morning at that, — with one window open 
in the L and the curtains drawn back from 
the other ; with the honeysuckle begin- 
ning to bud, its long runners twisting 
themselves inquiringly through the half- 
closed shutters as if anxious to discover 
what all this bustle inside was about. 

It was easy to see that some other touch 
besides that of the colonel and his faithful 
man-of-all-work had left its impress in the 



8o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

bachelor apartment. There was a general 
air of order apparent. The irregular line 
of foot gear which decorated the wash- 
board of one wall, beginning with a pair of 
worsted slippers and ending with a wooden 
bootjack, was gone. Whisk-brooms and 
dusters that had never known a restful 
nail since they entered the colonel's ser- 
vice were now suspended peacefully on 
convenient hooks. Dainty white curtains, 
gathered like a child's frock, flapped lazily 
against the broken green blinds, while some 
sprays of arbutus, plucked by Miss Nancy 
on her way to the railroad station, drooped 
about a tall glass on the mantel. 

Chad had solved the mystery, — Aunt 
Nancy came yesterday. 

I found the table set for four, its chief 
feature being a tray bearing a heap of egg- 
shell cups and saucers I had not seen be- 
fore, and an old-fashioned tea-urn hum- 
ming a tune all to itself. 

" De colonel 's out, but he comin' back 
d'rektly," Chad said eagerly, all out of 
breath with excitement. Then followed 
the information that Mr. Fitzpatrick was 
coming to breakfast, and that he was to 
tell Miss Nancy the moment we arrived. 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 8i 

He then reduced the bulge in his outside 
pocket by thrusting his big hands into his 
white gloves, gave a sidelong glance at the 
flower in his buttonhole, and bore my card 
aloft with the air of a cupbearer serving a 
princess, 

A soft step on the stair, the rustle of 
silk, a warning word outside : '' Look out 
for (Mt lower step, mistress — dat 's it ; " 
and Miss Nancy entered the room. 

No, I am wrong. She became a part of 
it ; as much so as the old andirons and the 
easy chairs and the old-fashioned mantel- 
pieces, the snowy curtains and the trailing 
vine. More so when she gave me the 
slightest dip' of a courtesy and laid her 
dainty, wrinkled little hand in mine, and 
said in the sweetest possible voice how 
glad she was to see me after so many years, 
and how grateful she felt for all my kind- 
ness to the dear colonel. Then she sank 
into a quaint rocking-chair that Chad had 
brought down behind her, rested her feet 
on a low stool that mysteriously appeared 
from under the table, and took her knitting 
from her reticule. 

She had changed somewhat since I last 
saw her, but only as would an old bit of 



82 Colonel Carter of Cartersviile 

precious stuff that grew the more mellow 
and harmonious in tone as it grew the 
older. She had the same silky gray hair — 
a trifle whiter, perhaps ; the same frank, ten- 
der mouth, winning wherever she smiled ; 
the same slight, graceful figure ; and the 
same manner — its very simplicity a reflex 
of that refined and quiet life she had al- 
ways led. For hers had been an isolated 
life, buried since her girlhood in a great 
house far away from the broadening influ- 
ences of a city, and saddened by the daily 
witness of a slow decay of all she had been 
taught to revere. But it had been a life so 
filled with the largeness of generous deeds 
that its returns had brought her the love 
and reverence of every living soul she 
knew. 

While she sat and talked to me of her 
journey I had time to enjoy again the 
quaintness of her dress, — the quaintness 
of forty years before. There was the same 
old-fashioned, soft gray silk with up-and- 
down stripes spotted with sprigs of flow- 
ers, the lace cap with its frill of narrow 
pink ribbons and two wide pink strings 
that fell over the shoulders, and the hand- 
kerchief of India mull folded across the 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 8^ 

breast and fastened with an amethyst pin. 
Her Httle bits of feet — they were literally 
so — were incased in white stockings and 
heelless morocco slippers bound with braid. 

But her dress was never sombre. She 
always seemed to remember, even in her 
bright ribbons and silks, the days of her 
girlhood, when half the young men in the 
county were wild about her. When she 
moved she wafted towards you a perfume 
of sweet lavender — the very smell that you 
remember came from your own mother's 
old-fashioned bureau drawer when she let 
you stand on tiptoe to see her pretty things. 
When you kissed her — and once I did — 
her cheek was as soft as a child's and fra- 
grant with rose-water. 

But I hear the colonel's voice outside, 
laughing with Fitz. 

" Come in, suh, and see the dearest 
woman in the world." 

The next instant he burst in dressed in 
his gala combination, — white waistcoat 
and cravat, the old coat thrown wide open 
as if to welcome the world., and a bunch of 
red roses in his hand. 

*' Nancy, here's my dear friend Fitz, 
whom I have told you about, — the most 



84 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

extraord'nary man of modern times. Ah, 
Major ! you here ? Came in early, did yon, 
so as to have aunt Nancy all to yo'self? 
Sit down, Fitz, right alongside of her." 
And he kissed her hand gallantly. " Is n't 
she the most delightful bit of old porcelain 
you ever saw in all yo' bawn days } " 

Miss Nancy rose, made another of her 
graceful courtesies, and begged that neither 
of us would mind the colonel's raillery ; 
she never could keep him in order. And 
she laughed softly as she gave her hand to 
Fitz, who touched it very much as if he 
quite believed the colonel's reference to 
the porcelain to be true. 

" There you go, Nancy, 'busin' me like 
a dog, and here I've been a-trampin' the 
streets for a' hour lookin' for flowers for 
you ! You are breakin' my heart. Miss 
Caarter, with yo' coldness and contempt. 
Another word and you shall not have a sin- 
gle bud." And the colonel gayly tucked a 
rose under her chin with a loving stroke 
of his hand, and threw the others in a heap 
on her lap. 

" Breakfast sarved, mistress," said Chad 
in a low voice. 

The colonel gave his arm to his aunt 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 8^ 

with the air of a courtier ; Fitz and I dis- 
posed ourselves on each side ; Chad, with 
reverential mien, screwed his eyes up tight ; 
and the colonel said grace with an increased 
fervor in his voice, no doubt remembering 
in his heart the blessing of the last arrival. 

Throughout the entire repast the colonel 
was in his gayest mood, brimming over 
with anecdotes and personal reminiscences 
and full of his rose-colored plans for the 
future. 

Many things had combined to produce 
this happy frame of mind. There was first 
the Scheme, which had languished for 
weeks owing to the vise-like condition of 
the money market, — another of Fitz's 
mendacious excuses, — and which had now 
been suddenly galvanized into temporary 
life by an inquiry made by certain bankers 
who were seeking an outlet for English 
capital, and who had expressed a desire to 
investigate the " Garden Spot of Virginia." 
Only an "inquiry," but to the colonel the 
papers were already signed. Then there 
was the arrival of his distinguished guest, 
whom he loved devotedly and with a cer- 
tain old-school gallantry and tenderness as 



86 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

picturesque as it was interesting. Last of 
all there was that important episode of 
the bills. For Miss Nancy, the night she 
arrived, had collected all the household ac- 
counts, including the highly esteemed pass- 
book, — they were all of the one kind, un- 
paid, — and had dispatched Chad early in 
the morning to the several creditors with 
his pocket full of crisp bank-notes. 

Chad had returned from this liquidating 
tour, and the full meaning of that trusty 
agent's mission had dawned upon the colo- 
nel. He buttoned his coat tightly over his 
chest, straightened himself up, sought out 
his aunt, and said, with some dignity and a 
slightly injured air : — 

" Nancy, yo' interfe'ence in my house- 
hold affairs this mornin' was vehy credita- 
ble to yo' heart, and deeply touches me ; 
but if I thought you regarded it in any 
other light except as a short tempo'ary 
loan, it would offend me keenly. Within 
a few days, however, I shall receive a vehy 
large amount of secu'ities from an English 
syndicate that is investigatin' my railroad. 
I shall then return the amount to you with 
interest, together with that other sum 
which you loaned me when I left Caarter 
Hall." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 8y 

The little lady's only reply was to slip 
her hand into his and kiss him on the fore- 
head. 

And yet that very morning he had turned 
his pockets inside out for the remains of 
the last dollar of the money she had given 
him when he left home. When it had all 
been raked together, and its pitiable insuffi- 
ciency had become apparent, this dialogue 
took place : — 

'' Chad, did you find any money on the 
flo' when you breshed my clothes ? " 

"No, Colonel." 

** Look round on the mantelpiece ; per- 
haps I left some bills under the clock." 

"Ain't none dar, sah." 

Then Chad, with that same anxious look 
suddenly revived in his face, went below into 
the kitchen, mounted a chair, took down 
an old broken tea-cup from the top shelf, 
and poured out into his wrinkled palm a 
handful of small silver coin — his entire col- 
lection of tips, and all the money he had. 
This he carried to the colonel, with a lie 
in his mouth that the recording angel 
blotted out the moment it fell from his 
lips. 

"Here's some change, Marsa George, I 



88 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

forgot to gib ye ; been left ober from de 
marketin'." 

And the colonel gathered it all in, and 
went out and spent every penny of it on 
roses for " dear Nancy ! " 

All of these things, as I have said, had 
acted like a tonic on the colonel, bracing 
him up to renewed efforts, and reacting on 
his guests, who in return did their best to 
make the breakfast a merry one. 

Fitz, always delightful, was more bril- 
liant than ever, his native wit, expressed 
in a brogue with verbal shadings so slight 
that it is hardly possible to give it in print, 
keeping the table in a roar; while Miss 
Nancy, encouraged by the ease and free- 
dom of everybody about her, forgot for a 
time her quiet reserve, and was charming 
in the way she turned over the leaves of her 
own youthful experiences. 

And so the talk went on until, with a 
smile to everybody, the little lady rose, 
called Chad, who stood ready with shawl 
and cushion, and, saying she would retire 
to her room until the gentlemen had fin- 
ished smoking, disappeared through the 
doorway. 

The talk had evidently aroused some 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 8g 

memory long buried in the colonel's mind ; 
for when Fitz had gone the dear old fellow 
picked up the glass holding the roses which 
he had given his aunt in the morning, and, 
while repeating her name softly to himself, 
buried his face in their fragrance. Some- 
thing, perhaps, in their perfume stirred that 
haunting memory the deeper, for he sud- 
denly raised his head and burst out : — 

" Ah, Major, you ought to have seen that 
woman forty years ago ! Why, suh, she 
was just a rose herself ! " 

And then followed in disconnected scraps, 
as if he were recalling it to himself, with 
long pauses between, that story which I had 
heard hinted at before. A story never told 
the children, and never even whispered in 
aunt Nancy's presence, — the one love af- 
fair of her life. 

She and Robert had grown up together, 
— he a tall, brown-eyed young fellow just 
out of the university, and she a fair-haired, 
joyous girl with half the county at her feet. 
Nancy had not loved him at first, nor ever 
did until the day he had saved her life in that 
wild dash across country when her horse 
took fright, and he, riding neck and neck, 
had lifted her clear of her saddle. After 



go Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

that there had been but one pair of eyes 
and arms for her in the wide world. All 
of that spring and summer, as the colonel 
put it, she was like a bird pouring out her 
soul in one continuous song. Then there 
had come a night in Richmond, — the night 
of the ball, — followed by her sudden re- 
turn home, hollow-eyed and white, and the 
mysterious postponement of the wedding 
for a year. 

Everybody wondered, but no one knew, 
and only as the months went by did her 
spirits gain a little, and she begin to sing 
once more. 

It was at a great party on a neighboring 
estate, amid the swim of the music and the 
whirl of soft lace. Suddenly loud voices 
and threats, a shower of cards flung at a 
man's face, an uplifted arm caught by the 
host. Then a hall door thrust open and a 
half-frenzied man with disordered dress 
staggering out. Then the startled face of 
a young girl all in white and a cry no one 
ever forgot : — 

" Oh, Robert ! Not again } " 

Her long ride home in the dead of the 
night, Nancy alone in the coach, her escort 
— a distant cousin — on horseback behind. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville gi 

Then the pursuit. The steady rise and 
fall of the hoof-beats back in the forest ; the 
reining in of Robert's panting horse covered 
with foam ; his command to halt ; a flash, 
and then that sweet face stretched out in 
the road in the moonlight by the side of 
the overturned coach, the cousin bending 
over her with a bullet hole in his hat, and 
Robert, ghastly white and sobered, with the 
smoking pistol in his hand. 

Then the long, halting procession home- 
ward in the gray dawn. 

It was not so easy after this to keep the 
secret shut away ; so one day, when the 
shock had passed, — her arms about her 
uncle's neck, • — the whole story came out. 
She told of that other night there in Rich- 
mond, with Robert reeling and half crazed ; 
of his promise of reform, and the postpone- 
ment of the wedding, while she waited and 
trusted : so sad a story that the old uncle 
forgot all the traditions that bound South- 
ern families, and sustained her in her de- 
termination never to see Robert again. 

For days the broken-hearted lover haunt- 
ed the place, while an out-bound ship waited 
in Norfolk harbor. 

Even Robert's father, crushed and hu- 



92 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

miliated by it all, had made no intercession 
for him. But now, he begged, would she 
see his son for the last time, only that he 
might touch her hand and say good-by ? 

That last good-by lasted an hour, Chad 
walking his horse all the while before the 
porch door, until that tottering figure, hold- 
ing to the railings and steadying itself, came 
down the steps. 

A shutter thrown back, and Nancy at 
the open window watching him mount. 

As he wheels he raises his hat. She 
pushes aside the climbing roses. 

In an instant he has cleared the garden 
beds, and has reined in his horse just be- 
low her window-sill. Looking up into her 
face : — 

" Nancy, for the last time, shall I stay } " 

She only shakes her head. 

" Then look, Nancy, look ! This is your 
work ! " 

A gleam of steel in a clenched hand, a 
burst of smoke, and before Chad can reach 
him Nancy's lover lies dead in the flowers 
at her feet. 

It had not been an easy story for the 
colonel. When he ceased he passed his 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 95 

hand across his forehead as if the air of the 
room stifled him. Then laying down his 
pipe, he bent once more over the slender 
vase, his face in the roses. 

*' May I come in } " 

In an instant the colonel's old manner 
returned. 

" May you come in, Nancy } Why, you 
dear woman, if you had stayed away five 
minutes longer I should have gone for you 
myself. What ! Another skein of yarn ? '* 

" Ye"s," she said, seating herself. " Hold 
out your hands." 

The loop slipped so easily over the colo- 
nel's arms that it was quite evident that 
the role was not new to him. 

" Befo' I forget it, Nancy, Mr. Fitzpatrick 
was called suddenly away to attend to some 
business connected with my railroad, and 
left his vehy kindest regards for you, and 
his apologies for not seein' you befo* he 
left." 

Fitz had said nothing that resembled 
this, so far as my memory served me, but 
it was what he ought to have done, and the 
colonel always corrected such little slips of 
courtesy by supplying them himself. 



g4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

" Politeness," he would sometimes say, 
" is becomin' rarer every day. I tell you, 
suh, the disease of bad manners is mo' 
contagious than the small-pox." 

So the deception was quite pardonable 
in him. 

" And what does Mr. Fitzpatrick think of 
the success of your enterprise, George.!^ " 

The colonel sailed away as usual with all 
his balloon topsails set, his sea-room lim- 
ited only by the skein, while his aunt wound 
her yarn silently, and listened with a face 
expressive at once of deep interest and 
hope, mingled with a certain undefined 
doubt. 

As the ball grew in size, she turned to 
me, and, with a penetration and practical in- 
sight into affairs for which I had not given 
her credit, began to dissect the scheme in 
detail. She had heard, she said, that there 
was lack of connecting lines and conse- 
quent absence of freight, as well as insuf- 
ficient harbor facilities at Warrentown. 

I parried the questions as well as I could, 
begging off on the plea that I was only a 
poor devil of a painter with a minimum 
knowledge of such matters, and ended by 
referring her to Fitz. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 93 

The colonel, much to my surprise, lis- 
tened to every word without opening his 
lips — a silence encouraged at first by his 
pride that she could talk so well, and main- 
tained thereafter because of certain mis- 
givings awakened in his mind as to the 
ultimate success of his pet enterprise. 

When she had punctured the last of his 
little balloons, he laid his hand on her shoul- 
der, and, looking into her face, said : — 

" Nancy, you really don't mean that my 
railroad will never be built ? " 

" No, George ; but suppose it should 
not earn its expenses ? " 

Her thoughts were new to the colonel. 
Nobody except a few foolish people in the 
Street, anxious to sell less valuable securi- 
ties, and utterly unable to grasp the great 
merits of the Cartersville and Warrentown 
Air Line Railroad plan, had ever before 
advanced any such ideas in his presence. 
He loosened his hands from the yarn, and 
took a seat by the window. His aunt's 
misgivings had evidently so thoroughly dis- 
turbed him that for an instant I could see 
traces of a certain offended dignity, cou- 
pled with a nervous anxiety lest her in- 
quiries had shaken my own confidence in 
his scheme. 



g6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

He began at once to reassure me. There 
was nothing to be uneasy about. Look at 
the bonds ! Note the perfect safety of 
the plan of finance — the earlier coupons 
omitted, the subsequent peace of the in- 
vestor ! The peculiar location of the road, 
with the ancestral estates dotted along its 
line ! The dignity of the several stations ! 
He could hear them now in his mind called 
out as they whistled down brakes : " Car- 
ter Hall ! Barboursville ! Talcott ! " No ; 
there was nothing about the road that 
should disturb his aunt. For all that a 
still more anxious look came into his face. 
He began pacing the floor, buried in deep 
thought, his thumbs hooked behind his 
back. At last he stopped and took her 
hand. 

*' Dear Nancy, if anything should happen 
to you it would break my heart. Don't be 
angry, it is only the major; but yo' talk 
with him has so disturbed me that I am 
determined to secure you against personal 
loss." 

Miss Nancy raised her eyes wonderingly 
She evidently did not catch his meaning. 

"You have been good enough, my dear, 
to advance me certain sums of money 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville gy 

which I still owe. I want to pay these 
now." 

" But, George, you " — 

"My dearest Nancy," — and he stooped 
down, and kissed her cheek, — "I will have 
my way. Of co'se you did n't mean any- 
thing, only I cannot let another hour pass 
with these accounts unsettled. Think, 
Nancy ; it is my right. The delay affects 
my honor." 

The little lady dropped her knitting on 
the floor, and looked at me in a helpless 
way. 

The colonel opened the table drawer, 
and handed me pen and ink. 

*' Now, Major, take this sheet of paper 
and draw a note of hand." 

I looked at his aunt inquiringly. She 
nodded her head in assent. 

'' Yes, if it pleases George." 

I began with the usual form, entering 
the words " I promise to pay," and stopped 
for instructions. 

'' Payable when, Colonel } " I asked. 

"As soon as I get the money, suh." 

"But you will do that anyhow, George." 

" Yes, I know, Nancy ; but I want to 
settle it in some safe way." 



g8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Then he gazed at the ceiling in deep 
thought. 

"I have it, Major!" And the colonel 
seized the pen. The note read as fol- 
lows : — 

On demand I promise to pay Ann Carter 
the sum of six hundred dollars, value received, 
with interest at the rate of six per cent, from 
January ist. 

Payable as soon as possible. 

George Fairfax Carter. 

I looked to see what effect this unex- 
pected influx of wealth would produce on 
the dear lady ; but the trustful smile never 
wavered. 

She read to the very end the modest 
scrap of paper so suddenly enriched by the 
colonel's signature, repeated in a whisper 
to herself " Payable as soon as possible," 
folded it with as much care as if it had 
been a Bank of England note, then thanked 
the colonel graciously, and tucked it in her 
reticule. 



CHAPTER V 

An Allusion to a Yellow Dog 

The colonel's office, like many other of 
his valued possessions, was in fact the 
property of somebody else. 

It really belonged to a friend of Fitzpat- 
rick, who had become so impressed by the 
Virginian's largeness of manner and buoy- 
ancy of enthusiasm that he had whispered 
to Fitz to bring him in at once and give 
him any desk in the place ; adding that 
*'in a sagging market the colonel would 
be better than a war boom." 

So the colonel moved in — not a very 
complicated operation in his case ; his ef- 
fects being confined to an old leather port- 
folio and a bundle of quill pens tied up with 
a bit of Aunt Nancy's white yarn. The 
following day he had nailed his visiting 
card above the firm's name in the corridor, 
hung his hat and coat on the proprietor's 
peg, selected a desk nearest the light, and 




•^ 



wo Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

was as much at home in five minutes as if 
he owned the whole building. 

There was no price agreed upon. Once, 
when Fitz delicately suggested that all 

such rents were 
generally payable 
jj^ ,. monthly, the colo- 

nel, after some dif- 
ficulty in grasp- 
ing the idea, had 
said : — 

'' I could not of- 
fer it, suh. These 
gentlemen have 
treated me with a 
hospitality so generous that its memory 
will never fade from my mind. I cannot 
bring our relations down to the level of 
bargain and sale, suh ; it would be vul- 
gar." 

The colonel was perfectly sincere. As 
for himself he would have put every room 
in his own Carter Hall at their service for 
any purpose or for any length of time, and 
have slept in the woodshed himself ; and 
he would as soon have demanded the value 
of the bottle of wine on his own table as 
ask pay for such trivial courtesies. 




Colonel Carter of Carter sville loi 

Nor did he stop at the rent. The free 
use of stamps, envelopes, paper, messenger 
service, and clerks were to him only evi- 
dences of a lordly sort of hospitality which 
endeared the real proprietor of the office 
all the more to him, because it recalled the 
lavish display of the golden days of Carter 
Hall. 

" Permit a guest to stamp his own let- 
ters, suh ? Never ! Our servants attended 
to that." 

Really he owed his host nothing. No 
office of its size in the Street made so much 
money for its customers in a bull market. 
Nobody lost heart in a tumble and was sold 
out — that is, nobody to whom the colonel 
talked. Once convince the enthusiastic 
Virginian that the scheme was feasible, — 
and how little eloquence was needed for 
that ! — and the dear old fellow took hold 
with as much gusto as if it had been his 
own. 

The vein in the copper mine was always 
going to widen out into a six-foot lead ; 
never by any possibility could it grow any 
smaller. The trust shares were going up 
— " not a point or two at a time, gentle- 
men, but with the spring of a panther, 



ro2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

suh." Of course the railroad earnings 
were a little off this month, but wait until 
the spring opened; "then, suh, you will 
see a revival that will sweep you off yo' 
feet." 

Whether it was good luck, or the good 
heart that the colonel put into his friend's 
customers, the results were always the 
same. Singular as it may seem, his cheery 
word just at the right time tided over the 
critical moment many an uncertain watcher 
at the *' ticker," often to an enlargement 
of his bank account. Nor would he allow 
any one to pay him for any service of this 
kind, even though he had spent days en- 
grossed in their affairs. 

*'Take money, suh, for helpin' a friend 
out of a hole ? My dear suh, I see you do 
not intend to be disco'teous ; but look at 
me, suh ! There 's my hand ; never refer 
to it again." And then he would offer the 
offender his card in the hope, perhaps, that 
its ample record might furnish some fur- 
ther slight suggestion as to who he really 
was. 

His popularity, therefore, was not to be 
wondered at. Everybody regarded him 
kindly, total stranger as he was, and al- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville loj 

though few of them believed to any ex- 
tent in his " Garden Spot of Virginia," as 
his pet enterprise soon came to be known 
around the Street, everybody wished it well, 
and not a few would have started it with a 
considerable subscription could the colonel 
have managed the additional thousands re- 
quired to set it on its financial legs. 

Fitz never lost heart in the scheme, — 
that is, never when the colonel was about. 
As the weeks rolled by and one combina- 
tion after the other failed, and the well- 
thumbed bundle of papers in the big blue 
envelope was returned with various com- 
ments : " In view of our present financial 
engagements we are unable to undertake 
your very attractive railroad scheme," or 
the more curt " Not suited to our line of 
customers," he would watch the colonel's 
face anxiously, and rack his brain for some 
additional excuse. 

He always found one. Tight money, or 
news from Europe, or an overissue of sim- 
ilar bonds ; next week it would be better. 
And the colonel always believed him. Fitz 
was his guiding star, and would lead him to 
some safe haven yet. This faith was his 
stronghold, and his only one. 



J04 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

This morning, however, there was a 
touch of genuine enthusiasm about Fitz. 
He rushed into the office, caught up the 
blue bundle and the map, nearly upsetting 
the colonel, who was balanced back in his 
chair with his long legs over the desk, — 
a favorite attitude when down town, — 
rushed out, and returned in half an hour 
with a fat body surmounted by a bald head 
fringed about with gray curls. 




Iv.l^ 



He was the advance agent of that mys- 
terious combination known to the financial 
world as an *' English syndicate," an elusive 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville lo^ 

sort of commercial sea-serpent with its 
head in London and its tail around the 
globe. The " inquiry " which had so glad- 
dened the colonel's heart the morning of 
the breakfast with aunt Nancy had pro- 
ceeded from this rotund negotiator. 

The colonel had, as usual, started the 
road at Cartersville, and had gotten as far 
as the double-span iron bridge over the 
Tench when the rotund gentleman asked 
abruptly, — 

" How far are you from a coal-field } " 

The colonel lifted the point of his pen, 
adjusted his glasses, and punched a hole in 
the rumpled map within a hair's breadth 
of a black dot labeled " Cartersville." 

" Right there, suh. Within a stone's 
throw of our locomotives." 

Fitz looked into the hole with as much 
astonishment as if it were the open mouth 
of the mine itself. 

" Hard or soft .? " said the stout man. 

" Soft, suh, and fairly good coal, I under- 
stand, although I have never used it, suh ; 
my ancestors always burned wood." 

Fitz heard the statement in undisguised 
wonder. In all his intercourse with the 
colonel he had never before known him to 



io6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

depart so much as a razor's edge from the 
truth. 

The fat man communed with himself a 
moment, and then said suddenly, " I '11 take 
the papers and give you an answer in a 
week," and hurried away. 

" Do you really mean, Colonel," said Fitz, 
determined to pin him down, "that there 
is a single pound of coal in Cartersville } " 

'' Do I mean it, Fitz } Don't it crop out 
in half a dozen spots right on our own 
place "^ One haalf of my estate, suh, is a 
coal-field." 

" You never told me a word about it." 

" I don't know that I did, Fitz. But it 
has never been of any use to me. Besides, 
suh, we have plenty of wood. We never 
burn coal at Caarter Hall." 

Fitz did not take that view of it. He 
went into an exhaustive cross-examination 
of the colonel on the coal question : who 
had tested it, the character of the soil, 
width of the vein, and dip of the land. 
This information he carefully recorded in 
a small book which he took from his inside 
pocket. 

Loosened from Fitz's pinioning grasp, 
the colonel, entirely oblivious to his friend's 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville loy 

sudden interest in the coal-field, and slight- 
ly impatient at the delay, bounded like a 
balloon with its anchors cut. 

*' An answer from the syndicate within 
a week ! My dear Fitz, I see yo' drift. 
You have kept the Garden Spots for the 
foreign investors. That man is impressed, 
suh ; I saw it in his eye." 

The room began filling up with the va- 
rious customers and loungers common to 
such offices : the debonair gentleman in 
check trousers and silk hat, with a rose in 
his button-hole, who dusts his trousers 
broadside with his cane — short of one hun- 
dred shares with thirty per cent, margin ; 
the shabby old man with a solemn face 
who watches the ticker a moment and then 
wanders aimlessly out, looking more like 
an underpaid clerk in a law office than the 
president of a crosstown railroad — long of 
one thousand shares with no margin at all ; 
the nervous man who stops the messenger 
boys and devours the sales' lists before 
they can be skewered on the files, — not 
a dollar's interest either way ; and, last of 
all, the brokers with little pads and nimble 
pencils. 

The news that the great English syndi- 



io8 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 




cate was looking into the C. & W. A. L. 
R. R. was soon around the office, and each 
Jiabitnd had a bright word for the colonel, 
congratulating him on the favorable turn 
his affairs had taken. 

All but old Klutchem, a broker in un- 
listed securities, who had been trying for 
weeks to get a Denver land scheme before 
the same syndicate, and had failed. 

'* Garden Spot bonds ! Bosh ! Road be- 
gins nowhere and ends nowhere. If any 
set of fools built it, the only freight it would 
get, outside of peanuts and sweet potatoes. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville log 

would be razor-back hogs and niggers. I 
would n't give a yellow dog for enough of 
those securities to paper a church." 

The colonel was on his feet in an in- 
stant. 

" Mr. Klutchem, I cannot permit you, 
suh, to use such language in my presence 
unrebuked ; you " — 

" Now, see here, old Garden Spot, you 
know " — 

The familiarity angered the colonel even 
more than the outburst. 

" Caarter, suh, — George Fairfax Caar- 
ter," said the colonel with dignity. 

" Well, Caarter, then," mimicking him, 
perhaps unconsciously. " You know " — 

The intonation was the last straw. The 
colonel lost all control of himself. No man 
had ever thus dared before. 

" Stop, Mr. Klutchem ! What I know, 
suh, I decline to discuss with you. Yo' 
statements are false, and yo' manner of 
expressin' them quite in keepin' with the 
evident vulga'ity of yo' mind. If I can as- 
certain that you have ever had any claim to 
be considered a gentleman you will hear 
from me ag'in. If not, I shall rate you as 
rankin' with yo' yallar dog ; and if you ever 



1 10 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

speak to me ag'in I will strike you, suh, 
with my cane." 

And the colonel, his eyes flashing, 
strode into the private office with the air 
of a field marshal, and shut the door. 

Klutchem looked around the room and 
into the startled faces of the clerks and 
bystanders, burst into a loud laugh, and left 
the office. On reaching the street he met 
Fitz coming in. 

" Better look after old Garden Spot, 
Fitzpatrick. I poked holes in his road, 
and he wanted to swallow me alive." 



CHAPTER VI 

Certain Important Letters 

When I reached my lodgings that nighl? 
I found this note, marked in the left-hand 
corner •* Important," and in the right-hand 
corner " In haste." A boy had left it half 
an hour before. 

Be at my house at six, prepared to leave 
town at an hour's notice. 

Carter. 

I hurried to Bedford Place, dived through 
the tunnel, and found Fitzpatrick with his 
hand on the knocker. I followed him 
through the narrow hall and into the din- 
ing-room. He had a duplicate, also marked 
"Important" and ''In haste," with this 
additional postscript : " Bring address of a 
prudent doctor." 

"What does all this mean, Fitz .? " I 
asked, spreading my letter out. 

" I give it up, Major. The last I saw of 
the colonel was at two o'clock. He was 



112 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

then in the private office writing. That 
old wind-bag Klutchem had been worrying 
him, I heard, and the colonel sat down on 
him hard. But he had forgotten all about 
it when I talked to him, for he was as calm 
as a clock. But what the devil. Major, 
does he want with a doctor > Chad ! " 
* **Yes, sah!" 

"Was the colonel sick this morning.?" 

"No, sah. Eat two b'iled eggs, and a 
dish ob ham half as big as yo' han'. He 
wa'n't sick, 'cause I yerd him singin' to 
hisself all fru de tunnel cl'ar out to de 
street." 

We sat down and looked at each other. 
Could anybody else be sick ? Perhaps 
aunt Nancy had been taken ill on her way 
home to Virginia, and the doctor was for 
the dear lady. But why a ''prudent doc- 
tor," and why both of us to go? 

Fitz paced up and down the room, and 
I sat by the open window, and looked out 
into the dreary yard. The hands of the 
clock in the tall tower outlined against the 
evening sky were past the hour, long past, 
and yet no colonel. 

Suppose he had been suddenly stricken 
down himself ! Suppose — 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ii^ 

The slamming of the outer gate, followed 
by a sentry-like tread in the tunnel, cut 
short our quandary, and the colonel's tall 
figure emerged from the archway, and 
mounted the steps. 

"What has happened ? " we both blurted 
out, opening the door for him. *' Who 's 
sick .'* Where are we going } " 

The colonel's only reply was a pressure 
of our hands. Then, placing his hat with 
great deliberation on the hall table, he drew 
off his gloves, waved us before him, and 
took his seat at the dining-room table. 

Fitz and I, now thoroughly alarmed, and 
quite prepared for the worst, stood on each 
side. 

The colonel dropped his hand into his 
inside pocket, and drew forth three letters. 

" Gentlemen, you see befo' you a man 
on the verge of one of the great crises of 
his life. You heard, Fitz, of what occurred 
in my office this mornin' 1 You know how 
brutally I was assaulted, and how entirely 
without provocation on my part } I am a 
Caarter, suh, and a gentleman. No man 
can throw discredit on an enterprise bearin' 
my name without bein' answerable to me." 



114 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

And the colonel with great dignity opened 
one of the letters, and read as follows : — 

51 Bedford Place. 
Tuesday. 

P. A. Klutchem. 

Sir, — You took occasion this morning, in 
the presence of a number of my friends, to 
make use of certain offensive remarks reflect- 
ing upon a great commercial enterprise to 
which I have lent my name. This was accom- 
panied by a familiarity as coarse as it was un- 
warranted. The laws of hospitality, which your 
own lack of good breeding violated, forbade 
my having you ejected from my office on the 
spot. 

I now demand that satisfaction to which I 
am entitled, and I herewith inform you that I 
am ready at an hour's notice to meet you at 
any point outside the city most convenient to 
yourself. 

Immediately upon your reply my friend Mr. 
T. B. Fitzpatrick will wait upon you and arrange 
the details. I name Major Thos. C. Yancey of 
Virginia as my second in the field. 

I have the honor to remain 

Your obedient servant, 
George Fairfax Carter, 

Late Colonel C. S. A. 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville ii^ 

" Suffering Moses ! " cried out Fitz, 
" You are not going to send that ? " 

" It is sent, my dear Fitz. Mailed from 
my office this afternoon. This is a copy." 

Fitz sank into a chair with both hands 
t0 his head. 

" My object in sendin' for you both," the 
colonel continued, ''was to be fully pre- 
pared should my antagonist select some 
early hour in the mornin'. In that case, 
Fitz, I shall have to rely on you alone, as 
Major Yancey cannot reach here until the 
followin' day. That was why a prudent 
doctor might be necessary at once." 

Fitz's only reply was to thump his own 
head, as if the situation was too overpower- 
ing for words. 

The colonel, with the same deliberation, 
opened the second letter. It was addressed 
to Judge Kerfoot, informing him of the na- 
ture of the " crisis," and notifying him of 
his (the colonel's) intention to appoint him 
sole executor of his estate should fate pro- 
vide that vacancy. 

The third was a telegram to Major Yan- 
cey summoning him at once '' to duty on 
the field in an affair of honor." 

''I am aware, Fitz, that some secrecy 



n6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

must be preserved in an affair of this kind 
Nawth — quite diffe'ent from our own 
county, and " — 

'' Secrecy ! Secrecy ! With that bellow- 
ing Klutchem ? Don't you know that that 
idiot will have it all over the Street by nine 
o'clock to-morrow, unless he is ass enough 
to get scared, get out a warrant, and clap 
you into the Tombs before breakfast ? O 
Colonel ! How could you do a thing like 
this without letting us know ? " 

The colonel never changed a muscle in 
his face. He was courteous, even patient 
with Fitz, now really alarmed over the con- 
sequences of what he considered a most 
stupendous piece of folly. He could not, he 
said, sit in judgment on other gentlemen. 
If Fitz felt that way, it was doubtless due 
to his education. As for himself, he must 
follow the traditions of his ancestors. 

'' But at all events, my friends, my dear 
friends," — and he extended both hands, 
— '^ we must not let this affair spoil our 
ap'tites. Nothing can now occur until the 
mornin', and we have ample time befo' day- 
light to make our preparations. Major, 
kindly touch the bell. Thank you ! Chad, 
serve the soup." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville iij 

So short a time elapsed between the 
sound of the bell and the thrusting in of 
Chad's head that it was quite evident the 
darky had been listening on the outside. 

If, however, that worthy guardian of the 
honor and dignity of the Carter family was 
at all disturbed by what he had heard, there 
was nothing in his face to indicate it. On 
the contrary, every wrinkle was twisted into 
curls and curves of hilarity. He even went 
so far during dinner as to correct his mas- 
ter in so slight a detail as to where Captain 
Loynes was hit in the famous duel between 
the colonel's father and that distinguished 
Virginian. 

"Are you shore, Chad, it was in the 
leg?" 

*' Yes, sah, berry sho. You don't reckel- 
member. Colonel ; but I had Marsa John's 
coat, an' I wrop it round Cap' in Loynes 
when he was ca'aied to his ca'aige. Yes, 
sah, jes above de knee. Marsa John 
picked him de fust shot." 

" I remember now. Yes, you are right. 
The captain always walked a little lame." 

"But, gentlemen," — still with great 
dignity, but yet with an air as if he desired 
to relieve our minds from any anxiety con- 



ii8 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

cerning himself, — '' by far the most inter- 
esting affair of honor of my time was the 
one in which I met Major Howard, a prom- 
inent member of the Fairfax County bar. 
Some words in the heat of debate led to a 
blow, and the next mornin' the handker- 
chief was dropped at the edge of a wood 
near the cote-house just as the sun rose 
over the hill. As I fired, the light blinded 
me, and my ball passed through his left 
arm. I escaped with a hole in my sleeve." 

" Living yet ? " said Fitz, repressing a 
smile. 

" Certainly, suh, and one of the fo'most 
lawyers of our State. Vehy good friend of 
mine. Saw him on'y the week befo' I left 
home." 

When dinner was served, I could detect 
no falling off in the colonel's appetite. 
With the exception of a certain nervous 
expectance, intensified when there was a 
rap at the front door, followed by a certain 
consequent disappointment when Chad an- 
nounced the return of a pair of shoes — 
out to be half-soled — instead of the long- 
delayed reply from the offending broker, 
he was as calm and collected as ever. 

It was only when he took from his table 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville i ig 

drawer some sheets of foolscap, spread the 
nib of a quill pen on his thumb nail, and 
beckoned Fitz to his side, that I noticed 
any difference even in his voice. 

" You know, Fitz, that my hand is not so 
steady as it was, and if I should fall, there 
are some things that must be attended to. 
Sit here and write these memoranda at my 
dictation." 

Fitz drew nearer, and bent his ear in 
attention. 

"I, George Fairfax Caarter of Caarter 
Hall, Caartersville, Virginia, bein' of sound 
mind " — 

The pen scratched away. 

'' Everything down but the sound mind," 
said Fitz ; "but go on." 

'*Do hereby," continued the colonel. 

**What 's all this for — another chal- 
lenge ? " said Fitz, looking up. 

"No, Fitz," — the colonel did not like 
his tone, — " but a few partin' instructions 
which will answer in place of a more for- 
mally drawn will." 

Fitz scratched on until the preamble was 
finished, and the unincumbered half of Car- 
ter Hall had been bequeathed to " my ever 
valued aunt Ann Carter, spinster," and he 



120 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

had reached a new paragraph beginning 
with, ''All bonds, stocks, and shares, 
whether founders', preferred, or common, 
of the corporation known as the Carters- 
ville and Warrentown Air Line Railroad, 
particularly the sum of 25,000 shares of 
said company subscribed for by the un- 
dersigned, I hereby bequeath," when Fitz 
stopped and laid down his pen. 

"You can't leave that stock. Not trans- 
ferred to you yet." 

" I know it, Fitz ; but I have pledged my 
word to take it, and so far as I am con- 
cerned, it is mine." 

Fitz looked over his glasses at me, and 
completed the sentence by which this also 
became " the exclusive property of Ann 
Carter, spinster." Then followed a clause 
giving his clothes to Chad, his seal and 
chain to Fitz, and his fowling-piece to me. 

When the document was finished, the 
colonel signed it in a bold, round hand, 
and attested it by a burning puddle of red 
wax into which he plunged the old family 
seal. Fitz and I duly witnessed it, and 
then the colonel, with the air of a man 
whose mind had been suddenly relieved of 
some great pressure, locked the important 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 121 

document in his drawer, and handed the 
key to Fitz. 

The change now in the colonel's man- 
ner was quite in keeping with the expres- 
sion of his face. All his severe dignity, 
all the excess of responsibility and apparent 
studied calmness, were gone. He even be- 
came buoyant enough to light a pipe. 

Presently he gave a little start as if sud- 
denly remembering something until that 
moment overlooked, then he lighted a can- 
dle, and mounted the stairs to his bed- 
room. In a few minutes he returned, car- 
rying in both hands a mysterious-looking 
box. This he placed with great care on 
the table, and proceeded to unlock with a 
miniature key attached to a bunch which 
he invariably carried in his trousers pocket. 

It was a square box made of mahogany, 
bound at each corner with brass, and bear- 
ing in the centre of the top a lozenge- 
shaped silver tablet engraved with a Carter 
coat of arms, the letters '' G. F. C." being 
beneath. 

The colonel raised the lid and uncovered 
the weapons that had defended the honor 
of the Carter family for two generations. 
They were the old-fashioned single-barrel 



122 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

kind, with butts like those of the pirates 
in a play, and they lay in a bed of faded 
red velvet surrounded by ramrods, bullet- 
moulds, a green pill-box labeled " G. D. Gun 
Caps," some scraps of wash leather, to- 
gether with a copper powder-flask and a 
spoonful of bullets. The nipples were 
protected by little patches cut from an old 
kid glove. 

The colonel showed with great pride a 
dent on one side of the barrel where a ball 
had glanced, saving some ancestor's life ; 
then he rang the bell for Chad, and con- 
signed the case to that hilarious darky very 
much as the knight of a castle would place 
his trusty blade in the hands of his chief 
armorer. 

*' Want a tech o' ile in dese baals. Colo- 
nel," said Chad, examining them critically. 
''Got to keep dere moufs clean if you want 
dese dogs to bark right ; " and he bore 
away the battery, followed by the colonel, 
who went down into the kitchen to see if 
the fire was hot enough to cast a few extra 
bullets. 

Fitz and I, being more concerned about 
devising some method to prevent the con- 
sequences of the colonel's rash act than in 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 12} 




increasing the facilities for bloodshed, re- 
mained where we were and discussed the 
possible outcome of the situation. 

We had about agreed that should 
Klutchem demand protection of the police, 
and the colonel be hauled up for violating 



124 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

the law of the State, I should go bail and 
Fitz employ the lawyer, when we were 
startled by a sound like the snap of a per- 
cussion-cap, followed by loud talking in the 
front yard. 

First came a voice in a commanding 
tone : " Stand where you are ! Drop yo' 
hand ! " 

Then Chad's '' Don't shoot yit. Colonel." 

Fitz and I started for the front door on 
a run, threw it open, and ran against Chad 
standing on the top step with his back to 
the panels. Over his head he held the 
stub of a candle flickering in the night 
wind. This he moved up and down in obe- 
dience to certain mysterious sounds which 
came rumbling out of the tunnel. Beside 
him on the stone step lay the brass-cor- 
nered mahogany dueling case with both 
weapons gone. 

The only other light visible was the 
glowing eye of the tall tower. 

" Where 's the colonel "^ " we both asked 
in a breath. 

Chad kept the light aloft with one hand 
like an ebony Statue of Liberty, and pointed 
strai2:ht ahead into the tunnel with the 
other. 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville 12^ 



" Mo' to the left," came the voice. 

Chad swayed the candle towards the 
broken-down fence, and sent his magnified 
shadow scurrying up the measly wall and 
halfway over to the next house. 

" So ! Now steady." 

The darky stood like the Sphinx, the light 
streaming atop of the tall candlestick, and 
then said from out one side of his mouth, 
" Spec' you gemmen better squat ; she 's 
gwineter bite." 

Fitz peered into the tunnel, caught the 
gleam of a pistol held in a shadowy hand, 
made a clear leap, and landed out of range 
among the broken flower-pots. I sprang 
behind the' hydrant, and at the same in- 
stant another cap snapped. 

''Ah, gentlemen," said the voice emerg- 
ing from the tunnel. '' Had I been quite 
sure of myself I should have sent for you. 
I used to snuff a candle at fo'ty yards, and 
but that my powder is a little old I could 
do it ag'in." 



CHAPTER VII 
The Outcome of a Council of IVar 

r 

When early the next morning, Fitz and 
I arrived at the colonel's office he was 
already on hand and in a state of high 
nervous excitement. His coat, which, so 
far as a coat might, always expressed in its 
various combinations the condition of his 
mind, w^as buttoned close up under his 
chin, giving to his slender figure quite a 
military air. He was pacing the floor with 
measured tread ; one hand thrust into his 
bosom, senator fashion, the other held be- 
hind his back. 

'' Not a line, suh ; not the scrape of a 
pen. If his purpose, suh, is to ignore me 
altogether, I shall horsewhip him on sight." 

" Have you looked through the firm's 
mail } " said Fitz, glad of the respite. 

" Eve'y where, suh — not a scrap." 

" I will hunt him up ; " and Fitz hurried 
down to Klutchem's office in the hope of 
either intercepting the challenge or of pa- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 127 

cifying the object of the colonel's wrath, if 
by any good chance the letter should have 
been delayed until the morning. 

In ten minutes he returned with the 
mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's let- 
ters had been sent to his apartment the 
night before, and that a telegram had just 
been received notifying his clerks that he 
would not be down that day. 

" Escaped, suh, has he .'' Run like a 
dog ! Like a yaller dog as he is ! Where 
has he gone .'' " 

" After a policeman, I guess," said Fitz. 

The colonel stopped, and an expression 
of profound contempt overspread his face. 

" If the gentleman has fallen so low, 
suh, that he proposes to go about with a 
constable taggin' after his heels, you can 
tell him, suh, that he is safe even from my 
boot." 

Then he shut the door of the private 
office in undisguised disgust, leaving Fitz 
and me on the outside. 

''What are we going to do, Major.?" 
said Fitz, now really anxious. '' I am pos- 
itive that old Klutchem has either left 
town or is at this moment at police head- 
quarters. If so, the dear old fellow will 



128 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

be locked up before sundown. Klutchem 
got that letter last night." 

It was at once decided to head off the 
broker, Fitz keeping an eye on his office 
every half hour in the hope that he might 
turn up, and I completing the arrange- 
ments for the colonel's bail so as to fore- 
stall the possibility of his remaining in cus- 
tody overnight. 

Fitz spent the day in efforts to lay 
hands on Klutchem in order to prevent the 
law performing the same service for the 
colonel. My own arrangements were more 
easily completed, a friend properly pos- 
sessed of sufficient real estate to make good 
his bond being in readiness for any emer- 
gency. One o'clock came, then three, 
then five ; the colonel all the time keeping 
to the seclusion of his private office, Fitz 
watching for Klutchem, and I waiting in 
the larger office for the arrival of one of 
those clean-shaven, thick-set young men, 
in a Derby hat and sack-coat, the unex- 
pected pair of handcuffs in his outside 
pocket. 

The morning of the second day the situ- 
ation remained still unchanged ; Fitz had 
been unable to find Klutchem either at his 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville I2g 

office or at his lodgings, the colonel was 
still without any reply from his antagonist, 
and no young man answering to my fears 
had put in any appearance whatever. 

The only new features were a telegram 
from Tom Yancey to the effect that he 
and Judge Kerfoot would arrive about 
noon, and another from the judge himself 
begging a postponement until they could 
reach the field. 

Fitz read both dispatches in a corner 
by himself, with a face expressive of the 
effect these combined troubles were mak- 
ing upon his otherwise happy countenance. 
He then crumpled them up in his hand 
and slid them into his pocket. 

Up to this time not a soul in the office 
except the colonel, Fitz, and I had the 
faintest hint of the impending tragedy, it 
being one of the colonel's maxims that all 
affairs of honor demanded absolute silence. 

" If yo' enemy falls," he would say, '' it 
is mo' co'teous to say nothin' but good 
of the dead ; and when you cannot say 
that, better keep still. If he is alive let 
him do the talkin' — he will soon kill him- 
self." 

Fitz kept still because he felt sure if he 



i^o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

could get hold of Klutchem the whole 
affair — either outcome powder or law — 
could be prevented. 

" Just as I had got the syndicate to look 
into the coal land," said Fitz, "which is 
the only thing the colonel 's got worth 
talking about, here he goes and gets into a 
first-class cast-iron scrape like this. What 
a lovely old idiot he is ! But I tell you, 
Major, something has got to be done about 
this shooting business right away ! Here 
I have arranged for a meeting at the colo- 
nel's house on Saturday to discuss this 
new coal development, and the syndicate's 
agent is coming, and yet we can't for the 
life of us tell whether the colonel will be 
on his way home in a pine box or locked 
up here for trying to murder that old wind- 
bag. It 's horrible ! 

"And to cap the climax," — and he pulled 
out the crumpled telegrams, — " here come 
a gang of fire-eaters who will make it twice 
as difficult for me to settle anything. I 
wish I could find Klutchem ! " 

While he spoke the office door opened, 
ushering in a stout man with a red face, 
accompanied by an elderly white-haired gen- 
tleman, in a butternut suit. The red-faced 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 131 

man was carrying a carpet bag — not the 
Northern variety of wagon-curtain canvas, 
but the old-fashioned carpet kind with 
leather handles and a mouth like a catfish. 
The snuff-colored gentleman's only charge 
was a heavy hickory cane and an umbrella 
with a waist like a market-woman's. 

The red-faced man took off a wide straw 
hat and uncovered a head slightly bald and 
reeking with perspiration. 

" I 'm lookin' fur Colonel Caarter, suh. 
Is he in ? " 

Fitz pointed to the door of the private 
office, and the elderly man drew his cane 
and rapped twice. The colonel must have 
recognized the signal as familiar, for the 
door opened with a spring, and the next 
moment he had them both by the hands. 

''Why, Jedge, this is indeed an honor — 
and Tom ! Of co'se I knew you would 
come, Tom ; but the Jedge I did not expec' 
until I got yo' telegram. Give me yo' bag, 
and put yo' umbrella in the corner. 

'' Here Fitz, Major ; both of you come 
in here at once. 

"Jedge Kerfoot, gentlemen, of the dis- 
trict co'te of Fairfax County. Major Tom 
Yancey, of the army." 



1^2 Colonel Carter of Carle rsville 

The civilities over, extra chairs were 
brought in, the door again closed, and a 
council of war was held. 

Major Yancey's first word — but I must 
describe Yancey. Imagine a short, oily 
skinned, perpetually perspiring sort of man 
of forty, with a decollete collar, a double- 
breasted waistcoat with glass buttons, 
and skin-tight light trousers held down to 
a pair of high-heeled boots by leather 
straps. The space between his waistband 
and his waistcoat was made good by certain 
puckerings of his shirt anxious to escape 
the thralldom of his suspenders. His 
paunch began and ended so suddenly that 
he constantly reminded you of a man who 
had swallowed a toy balloon. 

Yancey's first word was an anxious in- 
quiry as to whether he was late, adding, 
" I came ez soon ez I could settle some busi- 
ness mattahs." He had borrowed his trav- 
eling expenses from Kerfoot, who in turn 
had borrowed them from Miss Nancy, keep- 
ing the impending duel carefully concealed 
from that dear lady, and reading only such 
part of the colonel's letter as referred to 
the drawing up of some important papers in 
which he was to figure as chief executor. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 133 



"Late? No, Tom," said the colonel; 
" but the scoundrel has run to cover. We 
are watchin' his hole," 

" You sholy don't tell me he 's got away, 
Colonel ? " repHed Major Yancey. 

"What could I do, Yancey .? He has n't 
had the decency to answer my letter." 

Yancey, however, on hearing more fully 
the facts, clung to the hope that the Yan- 
kee would yet be smoked out. 

" I of co'se am not familiar with the 
code as practiced Nawth — perhaps these 
delays are permis'ble ; but in my county 
a challenge is a ball, and a man is killed 
or wounded ez soon ez the ink is dry on 
the papah. The time he has to live is only 
a mattah of muddy roads or convenience 
of seconds. Is there no way in which this 
can be fixed .? I doan't Uke to return home 
without an effo't bein' made." 

The colonel, anxious to place the exact 
situation before Major Yancey so that he 
might go back fully assured that everything 
that a Carter could do had been done, read 
the copy of the challenge, gave the details 
of Fitz's efforts to find Klutchem, the re- 
peated visits to his office, and finally the 
call at his apartments. 



1^4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

The major listened attentively, consulted 
aside with the judge, and then in an au- 
thoritative tone, made the more impressive 
by the decided way with which he hitched 
up his trousers, said : — 

" You have done all that a his^h-toned 
Southern gemman could do. Colonel, Yo' 
honor, suh, is without a stain." 

In which opinion he was sustained by 
Kerfoot, who proved to be a ponderous 
sort of old-fashioned county judge, and 
who accentuated his decision by bringing 
down his cane with a bang. 

While all this was going on in the pri- 
vate office under cover of profound secrecy, 
another sort of consultation of a much 
more public character was being held in 
the office outside. 

A very bright young man — one of the 
clerks — held in his hand a large envelope, 
bearing on one end the printed address of 
the firm whose private office the colonel 
was at that moment occupying as a coun- 
cil chamber. It was addressed in the colo- 
nel's well-known round hand. This was not 
the fact, however, which excited interest ; 
for the colonel never used any other envel- 
opes than those of the firm. 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 7^5 

The postman, who had just taken it from 
his bag, wanted to deliver it at its desti- 
nation. The proprietor wanted to throw 
it back into the box for remailing, believ- 
ing it to be a Garden Spot circular, and 
so of no especial importance. The bright 
young man wanted to return it to the colo- 
nel. 

The bright young man prevailed, rapped 
at the door, and laid the letter under the 
colonel's nose. It bore this address : — 

P. A. Klutchem, Esq., 

Room 21, Star Building, Wall Street, 

Imr7iediate. New York. 

The colonel turned pale and broke the 
seal. Out dropped his challenge! 

*' Where did you get this } " he asked, 
aghast. 

" From the carrier. It was held for 
postage." 

Had a bombshell been exploded the ef- 
fect could not have been more startUng. 

Yancey was the first man on his feet. 

*' And the scoundrel never got it ! Here, 
Colonel, give me the letter. I '11 go through 



/j6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

this town like a fine-tooth comb but what 
I '11 find him. He will never escape me. 
My name is Yancey, suh ! " 

The judge was more conservative. He 
had grave doubts as to whether a second 
challenge, after a delay of two days and 
two nights, could be sent at all. The tra- 
ditions of the Carter family were a word 
and a blow, not a blow and a word in two 
days. To intrust the letter to the United 
States mail was a grave mistake ; the colo- 
nel might have known that it would mis- 
carry. 

Fitz said grimly that letters always did, 
without stamps. The Government was 
running the post-office on a business basis, 
not for its health. 

Yancey looked at Fitz as if the interrup- 
tion wearied him, then, turning to the colo- 
nel, said that he was dumbfounded that a 
man who had been raised as Colonel Car- 
ter could have violated so plain a rule of 
the code. A challenge should always be 
delivered by the hand of the challenger's 
friend. It should never be mailed. 

The poor colonel, who since the discov- 
ery of the unstamped letter had sat in a 
heap buried in his coat collar, — the mili- 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville 757 

tary button having given way, — now gave 
his version of the miscarriage. 

He began by saying that when his friend 
Major Yancey became conversant with all 
the facts he would be more lenient with 
him. He had, he said, found the proprie- 
tor's drawer locked, and, not having a stamp 
about him, had dropped the document into 
the mail-box with the firm's letters, pre- 
suming that the clerks would affix the tax 
the Government imposed. That the docu- 
ment had reached the post-office was evi- 
denced by the date-stamp on the envelope. 
It seemed to him a picayune piece of busi- 
ness on the part of the authorities to de- 
tain it, and all for the paltry sum of two 
cents. 

Major Yancey conferred with the judge 
for a moment, and then said that the colo- 
nel's explanation had relieved him of all 
responsibility. He owed him a humble 
apology, and he shook his hand. Colonel 
Carter had done all that a high-bred gen- 
tleman could do. The letter was intrusted 
to the care of Mr. Klutchem's own govern- 
ment, the post-office as now conducted 
being peculiarly a Yankee institution. 

" If Mr. Klutchem's own government, 



1^8 Colonel Carter of CaHersville 

gemmen," — and he repeated it with a ris- 
ing voice, — " if Mr. Klutchem's own gov- 
ernment does not trust him enough to de- 
liver to him a letter in advance of a payment 
of two cents, such action, while highly dis- 
creditable to Mr. Klutchem, certainly does 
not relieve that gemman from the respon- 
sibility of answerin' Colonel Caarter." 

The colonel said the point was well taken, 
and the judge sustained him. 

Yancey looked around with the air of a 
country lawyer who had tripped up a wit- 
ness, decorated a corner of the carpet, and 
continued : — 

*' My idee, suh, now that I am on the 
ground, is for me to wait upon the gemman 
at once, hand him the orig'nal challenge, 
and demand an immediate answer. That 
is," turning to Fitz, ''unless he is in hid- 
in'." 

Fitz replied that it was pretty clear to 
him that a man could not hide from a chal- 
lenge he had never received. It was quite 
evident that Klutchem was detained some- 
where. 

The colonel coincided, and said in jus- 
tice to his antagonist that he would have 
to acquit him of this charge. He did not 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville i^g 

now believe that Mr. Klutchem had run 
away. 

Fitz, who up to this time had enjoyed 
every turn in the discussion, and who had 
listened to Yancey with a face like a stone 
god, his knees shaking with laughter, now 
threw another bombshell almost as disas- 
trous as the first. 

" Besides, gentlemen, I don't think Mr. 
Klutchem's remarks were insulting." 

The colonel's head rose out of his collar 
with a jerk, and the forelegs of Yancey's 
chair struck the floor with a thump. Both 
sprang to their feet The judge and I re- 
mained quiet. " Not insultin*, suh, to call 
a gemman a — a — Colonel, what did the 
scoundrel call you .'' " 

" It was mo' his manner," replied the 
colonel. " He was familiar, suh, and pre- 
sumin' and offensive." 

Yancey broke away again, but Fitz side- 
tracked him with a gesture, and asked the 
colonel to repeat Klutchem's exact words. 

The colonel gazed at the ceiling a mo- 
ment, and replied : — 

" Mr. Klutchem said that, outside of pea- 
nuts and sweet potatoes, all my road would 
git for freight would be niggers and razor- 
back hogs." 



140 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

'' Mr. Klutchem was right, Colonel," said 
Fitz. '' Very sensible man. They will 
form a very large part of our freight. Any- 
thing offensive in that remark of Klutch- 
em's, Major Yancey .? " 

The major conferred with the judge, and 
said reluctantly that there was not. 

" Go on, Colonel," continued Fitz. 

" Then, suh, he said he would n't trade a 
yaller dog for enough of our bonds to papah 
a meetin'-house." 

** Did he call you a yaller dog } " said 
Yancey searchingly, and straightening 
himself up. 

-No." 

*' Call anybody connected with you a 
yaller dog .? " 

" Can't say that he did." 

'' Call yo' railroad a yaller dog .? " 

** No, don't think so," said the colonel, 
now thoroughly confused and adrift. 

Yancey consulted with the judge a mo- 
ment in one corner, and then said grave- 

" Unless some mo' direct insult is stated, 
Colonel, we must agree with yo' friend Mr. 
Fitzpatrick, and consider yo' action hasty. 
Now, if you had pressed the gemman, and 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 141 

he had called yo?i a yaller dog or a liar, 
somethm' might be done. Why did n't you 
press him ? " 

" I did, suh. I told him his statements 
were false and his manners vulgar." 

'' And he did not talk back ? '' 

" No, suh ; on'y laughed." 

*' Sneeringly, and in a way that sounded 
like ' Yo' 're another ' ? " 

The colonel could not remember that it 
was. 

Yancey ruminated, and Fitz now took a 
hand. 

" On the contrary, Major Yancey, Mr. 
Klutchem's laugh was a very jolly laugh-; 
and, under the circumstances, a laugh very 
creditable to his good nature. You are 
young and impetuous, but I know my 
learned friend. Judge Kerfoot, will agree 
with me " — here Yancey patted his toy 
bailoon complacently, and the judge leaned 
forward with rapt attention — '' when I say 
that if any apologies are in order they should 
not come from Mr. Klutchem." 

It was delicious to note how easily Fitz 
fell into the oratorical method of his hear- 
ers. 

'' Here is a man immersed in stocks, and 



^^2 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

totally ignorant of the boundless resources 
of your State, who limits the freight of our 
road to four staples, — peanuts, hogs, sweet 
potatoes, and niggers. As a further ex- 
hibition of his ignorance he estimates the 
value of a large block of our securities as 
far below the price set upon a light, tan- 
colored canine, a very inexpensive animal ; 
or, as he puts it, and perhaps too coarsely, 
— a yellow dog. For the expression of these 
financial opinions in an open office during 
business hours he is set upon, threatened 
with expulsion, and finally challenged to a 
mortal duel. I ask you, as chivalric Vir- 
ginians, is this right ? " 

Yancey was about to answer, when the 
judge raised his hand impressively. 

"The co'te, not being familiar with the 
practice of this section, can on'y decide the 
question in acco'dance with the practice of 
his own county. The language used is not 
objectionable, either under the law or by 
the code. The prisoner, Klutchem, is dis- 
charged with a reprimand, and the plain- 
tiff, Caarter, leaves the co'te room without 
a stain on his cha'acter. The co'te will now 
take a recess." 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 14^ 

Fitz listened with great gravity to the 
decision of the learned judge, bowed to him 
with the pleased deference of the winning 
attorney, grasped the colonel's hand, and 
congratulated him warmly on his acquittal. 




\ci/)Mi 



Then, locking his arm through Yancey's, 
he conducted that pugnacious but parched 
Virginian, together with the overworked 
judge, out into the street, down a flight of 
stone steps, and into an underground apart- 
ment ; from which they all emerged later 
with that satisfied, cheerful air peculiar to 



144 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

a group of men who have slaked their 
thirst. 

The colonel and I remained behind. He 
was in no mood for such frivolity. 



CHAPTER VIII 

A High Sense of Honor 

While the judge's decision had relieved 
the colonel of all responsibility so far as 
Yancey and Cartersville were concerned, 
— and Yancey would be Cartersville when 
he was back at the tavern stove, — there 
was one person it had not satisfied, and 
that was the colonel himself. 

He began pacing the floor, recounting 
for my benefit the various courtesies he 
had received since he had lived at the 
North, — not only from the proprietors of 
the office, but from every one of its fre- 
quenters. And yet after all these civilities 
he had so far forgotten himself as to chal- 
lenge a friend of his host, a very worthy 
gentleman, who, although a trifle brusque 
in his way of putting things, was still an 
open-hearted man. And all because he 
differed with him on a matter of finance. 

''The mo' I think of it. Major, the mo' 
I am overwhelmed by my action. It was 



7^(5 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

inconsiderate, suh. It was uncalled for, 
suh ; and I am afraid " — and here he low- 
ered his voice — '* it was ill-bred and vulgar. 
What could those gentlemen who stood 
by have thought ? They have all been so 
good to me, Major. I have betrayed their 
hospitality. I have forgotten my blood, 
suh. There is certainly an apology due 
Mr. Klutchem." 

At this juncture Fitz returned, followed 
by Yancey, who was beaming all over, the 
judge bringing up the rear. 

All three listened attentively. 

"Who 's goin' to apologize.?" said Yan- 
cey, shifting his thumbs from his armholes 
to the side pockets of his vest, from which 
he pinched up some shreds of tobacco. 

" I am, suh ! " replied the colonel. 

'' What for. Colonel } " The doctrine 
was new to Yancey. 

** For my own sense of honor, suh ! " 

''But he never got the challenge." 

"That makes no diff'ence, suh. I wrote 
it." And the colonel threw his head up, 
and looked Major Yancey straight in the 
eye. 

'' But, Colonel, we 've got the letter. 
Klutchem don't know a word about it." 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 147 



''But I do, Major Yancey; and so do 
you and Fitz, and the jedge and the major 
here. We all know it. Do you suppose, 
suh, for one instant, that I am cowardly 
enough to stab a man in the back this way 
and give him no chance of defendin' him- 
self } It is monst'ous, suh ! Why, suh, it 's 
no better than insultin' a deaf man, and 
then tryin' to escape because he did not 
hear you. I tell you, suh, I shall apologize. 
Fitz, kindly inquire outside if there is any 
news of Mr. Klutchem." 

Fitz opened the door, and sent the in- 
quiry ringing through the office. 

'' Yes ! " came a voice from around the 
"ticker." "Went to the races two days 
ago, got soaking wet, and has been laid up 
ever since at a friend's house with the 
worst attack of gout he ever had in his 
life." 

The colonel started as if he had been 
stung, put on his hat, and with a deter- 
mined air buttoned his coat over his chest. 
Then, charging Yancey and the judge not 
to leave the office until he returned, he 
beckoned Fitz to him, and said : — 

''We have not a moment to lose. Get 
Mr. Klutchem's address, and order a caar- 



riasfe. 



148 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

It was the custom with Fitz never to 
cross the colonel in any one of his sudden 
whims. Whether this was because he liked 
to indulge him, or because it gave him an 
opportunity to study a type of man entirely 
new to him, the result was always the same, 
— the colonel had his way. Had the Vir- 
ginian insisted upon waiting on the offend- 
ing broker in a palanquin or upon the top 
of a four-in-hand, Fitz would have found the 
vehicle somehow, and have crawled in or 
on top beside him with as much compla- 
cency as if he had spent his whole life with 
palanquins and coaches, and had had no 
other interests. So when the order came 
for the carriage, Fitz winked at me with 
his left eye, walked to the sidewalk, whis- 
tled to a string of cabs, and the next in- 
stant we were all three whirling up the 
crowded street in search of the bedridden 
broker. 

The longer the colonel brooded over the 
situation the more he was satisfied with 
the idea of the apology. Indeed, before 
he had turned down the side street leading 
to the temporary hospital of the suffering 
man, he had arranged in his mind just 
where the ceremony would take place, and 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 14^ 

just how he would frame his opening sen- 
tence. He was glad, too, that Klutchem 
had been discovered so soon — while Yan- 
cey and Kerfoot were still in town. 

The colonel alighted first, ran up the 
steps, pulled the bell with the air of a doc- 
tor called to an important case, and sent 
his card to the first floor back. 

"Mr. Klutchem says, 'Walk up,'" said 
the maid. 

The broker was in an armchair with his 
back to the door, only the top of his bald 
head being visible as we entered. On a 
stool in front rested a foot of enormous 
size swathed in bandages. Leaning against 
his chair were a pair of crutches. He was 
somewhat startled at the invasion, made as 
it was in the busiest part of the day. 

'' What 's up } Anybody busted } " 

Fitz assured him that the Street was in 
a mood of the greatest tranquillity; that 
the visit was purely personal, and made for 
the express purpose of offering Colonel 
Carter an opportunity of relieving his mind 
of a pressure which at the precise moment 
was greater than he could bear. 

'' Out with it, old Garden — Colonel," 
broke out Klutchem, catching himself in 



1^0 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

time, and apparently greatly relieved that 
the situation was no worse. 

The colonel, who remained standing, 
bowed courteously, drew himself up with a 
dress-parade gesture, and recounted slowly 
and succinctly the incidents of the preced- 
ing three days. 

When he arrived at the drawing-up of 
the challenge, Kliitchem looked around 
curiously, gathered in his crutches with his 
well leg, — prepared for escape or defense, 
— and remained thus equipped until the 
colonel reached the secret consultation in 
the private office and the return of the un- 
stamped letter. Then he toppled his sup- 
ports over on the floor, and laughed until 
the pain in his elephantine foot bent him 
double. 

The colonel paused until Klutchem had 
recovered himself, and then continued, his 
face still serene, and still expressive of a 
purpose so lofty that it excluded every 
other emotion. 

*'The return of my challenge unopened, 
suh, coupled with the broad views of my 
distinguished friends Mr. Fitzpatrick and 
the major, — both personal friends of yo' 
own, I believe, — and the calmer reflection 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i^i 

of my own mind, have convinced me, Mr. 
Klutchem, that I have been hasty and have 
done you a wrong ; and, suh, rememberin' 
my blood, I have left the cares of my office 
for a brief moment to call upon you at 
once, and tell you so. I regret, suh, that 
you have not the use of both yo' legs, but 
I have anticipated that difficulty. My caar- 
riage is outside." 

" Don't mention it, Colonel. You never 
grazed me. If you want to plaster that 
syndicate all over with Garden Spots, go 
ahead. I won't sav a word. There 's my 
hand." 

The colonel never altered a line in his 
face nor moved a muscle of his body. Mr. 
Klutchem's hand remained suspended in 
mid air. 

"Yo' action is creditable to yo' heart, 
suh, but you know, of course, that I cannot 
take yo' hand here. I insulted you in a 
public office, and in the presence of yo' 
friends and of mine, some of whom are at 
this moment awaitin' our return. I feel 
assured, suh, that under the circumstances 
you will make an effort, however painful it 
may be to you, to relieve me from this stain 
on my cha'acter. Allow me to offer you 



1^2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 




my arm, and help you to my caarriage, suh. 
I will not detain you mo' than an hour." 

Klutchem looked at him in perfect aston- 
ishment. 

"What for?" 

The colonel's color rose. 

"That this matter may be settled prop- 
erly, suh. I insulted you publicly in my 
office. I wish to apologize in the same 
way. It is my right, suh." 

" But I can't walk. Look at that foot, 
— big as a hatbox." 

" My friends will assist you, suh. I will 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 75 j 

carry yo' crutches myself. Consider my 
situation. You surely, as a man of honor, 
will not refuse me this, Mr. Klutchem ? " 

The colonel's eyes began to snap, and 
Fitz edged round to pour oil when the wind 
freshened. Klutchem's temper was also on 
the move. 

" Get out of this chair with that mush 
poultice," pointing to his foot, ''and have 
you cart me down to Wall Street to tell 
me you are sorry you did n't murder me ! 
What do you take me for ? " 

The colonel's eyes now fairly blazed, and 
his voice trembled with suppressed anger. 

" I did take you, suh, for a gentleman. 
I find I am mistaken. And you refuse to 
go, and " — 

'' Yes ! " roared Klutchem, his voice 
splitting the air like a tomahawk. 

" Then, suh, let me tell you right here 
that if you do not get up now and get into 
my caarriage, whenever you can stand on 
yo' wuthless legs, I will thresh you so, suh, 
that you will never get up any mo'." 




■r<.iH^-' 



CHAPTER IX 

A Visit of Ceremony 

The Honorable L B. Kerfoot, presiding 
judge of the district court of Fairfax Coun- 
ty, Virginia, and the gallant Major Thomas 
C. Yancey, late of the Confederate army, 
had been the colonel's guests at his hos- 
pitable house in Bedford Place for a period 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 735: 

of six days and six nights, when my cards 
— two — were given to Chad, together with 
my verbal hopes that both gentlemen were 
within. 

My visit was made in conformity with 
one of the colonel's inflexible rules, — every 
guest under his roof, within one week of 
his arrival, was to be honored by a personal 
call from every friend within reach. 

No excuse would have sufficed on the 
ground of flying visits. And indeed, so far 
as these particular birds of passage were 
concerned, the occupation was permanent, 
the judge having taken possession of the 
only shake-down sofa on the lower floor, 
and the warlike major having plumped him- 
self into the middle of the colonel's own bed 
not ten minutes after his arrival. Even to 
the casual Northern eye, unaccustomed to 
the prolonged sedentary life of the average 
Virginian when a guest, there was every 
indication that these had come to stay. 

Chad laid both of my cards on the table, 
and indulged in a pantomime more graphic 
than spoken word. He shut his eyes, laid 
his cheek on one hand, and gave a groan of 
intense disgust, followed by certain gleeful 
chuckles, made the more expressive by the 



1^6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

sly jerking of his tliumb towards the din- 
ing-room door and the bobbing up and down 
of his fore-finger in the direction of the 
bedroom above. 

" Bofe in. Yes, sah ! Bofe in, an' bofe 
abed. Last I yeard from em' dey was hol- 
lerin' for juleps." 

I entered the dining-room and stopped 
short. On a low sofa at the far end of the 
room lay a man of more than ordinary 
girth, with coat, vest, and shoes off, his face 
concealed by a newspaper. From beneath 
this sheet came, at regular intervals, a long- 
drawn sound like the subdued puff of a tired 
locomotive at rest on a side-track. Beside 
him was an empty tumbler, decorated with 
a broken straw and a spray of withered 
mint. 

The summer air fanned through the 
closed blinds of the darkened room, and 
played with the silvery locks that straggled 
over the white pillow ; the paper rose and 
fell with a crinkling noise, keeping time to 
the rhythm of the exhaust. Beyond this 
there was no movement. The Hon. I. B. 
Kerfoot was asleep. 

I watched the slowly heaving figure for 
a moment, picked up a chair, and gently 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 1^7 

dosed the door. I could now look the 
colonel in the face so far as the judge was 
concerned. My account with the colonel 
was settled. 

Retiring to the yard outside, which was 
cool and shady, and, despite its dilapidated 
appearance, a grateful relief from the glare 
of the street, I tilted my chair against 
the dissipated wall, with its damaged com- 
plexion of scaling white-wash, and sat down 
to await the colonel's return. 

Meanwhile Chad busied himself about 
the kitchen, moving in and out the base- 
ment door, and at last brought up a great 
tin pan, seated himself on the lower step, 
and proceeded to shell pease, indulging all 
the while in a running commentary on the 
events of the preceding week. 

One charm in Chad's conversation was 
its clearness. You always absorbed his 
meaning. Another was its reliability. 
When he finished you had the situation in 
full. 

First came the duel. 

" So dat Ketchem man done got away .^ 
Doan' dat beat all ! An' de colonel a-mak- 
in' his will an' a-rubbin up his old barkers. 
Can't have no fun yer naaway ; sumpin' 



1^8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

allers spiles it. But yer oughter seen de 
colonel dat day w'en he come home ! Sakes 
alive, warn't he b'ilin' ! Much as Jedge 
Keerfoot could do to keep him from killin' 
dat Yankee on de street." 

Chad's long brown fingers fumbled 
among the green pea-shells, which he 
heaped up on one side of the pan, and the 
conversation soon changed to his master's 
'' second in the field." I encouraged this 
divergence, for I had been charged by Fitz 
to find out when these two recent additions 
to the household in Bedford Place intended 
returning to their native clime ; that loyal 
friend of the colonel being somewhat dis- 
turbed over their preparations for what 
promised to be a lengthy stay. 

" 'Fo' de Lawd, I doan' know ! Tom 
Yancey nebber go s' long as de mint patch 
hoi' out, an' de colonel bought putty near a 
ba'el ob it dis mawnin', an' anudder dimi- 
john from Mister Grocerman. Makes my 
blood bile to see dese Yanceys, anyhow. 
See dat carpet bag w'at he fotch wid him } 
Knowed w'at he had in it w'en he opened 
its mouf an' de jedge tuk his own clo'es 
outen it .-* A pair ob carpet slippers, two 
collars, an' a lot ob chicken fixin's. Not a 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 1 59 

shirt to his back 'cept de one he had on ! 
Had to stay abed yisteddy till I i'oned it. 
Dar's one ob his collars on de line now. 
Dese yer Yanceys no 'count no way. Beats 
de Ian' how de colonel can put up wid 'em, 
'cept his faader was quality. You know de 
old gineral married twice, de las' time his 
oberseer's daughter. Dat 's her chile — 
Tom Yancey — 'sleep now on de colonel's 
bed upstairs wid a straw in his mouf like 
a shote. But de colonel say 't ain't Tom's 
fault dat he takes after his mammy ; he 's 
a Yancey, anyhow. But I tell you, Major, 
Miss Nancy doan' hab nuffin' much to do 
wid 'im, — she can't abide 'im." 

" How long are they going to stay, 
Chad } " I asked, wishing to make a defi- 
nite report to Fitz. . 

''Doan' know. Ole groun'-hog mighty 
comf'ble in de hole." And he heaped up 
another pile of shells. 

" Fust night de jedge come he tol' de 
colonel dat Miss Nancy say we all got to 
come home when de month 's up, railroad 
or no railroad. Dat was a week ago. Den 
de jedge tasted dat Madary Mister Gro- 
cerman sent, an' I ain't yerd nuffin' 'bout 
goin' home since. Is you yerd, Major.? " 



j6o Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Before I could answer, a shutter opened 
overhead and a voice came sifting down. 

" O Chad ! Mix me a julep. And, Chad, 
bring an extra one for the colonel. I reckon 
he '11 be yer d'reckly." 

" Yes, sah," repHed Chad, without lift- 
ing his eyes from the pan. 

Then glancing up and finding the blind 
closed again, he said to me in a half-whis- 
per : — 

" Colonel get his julep when he ax fur 
it. I ain't caayin' no double drinks to no- 
body. Dis ain't no camp-meetin' bar." 

But Chad's training had been too thor- 
ough to permit of his refusing sustenance 
or attention to any guest of his master's, no 
matter how unworthy, and it was not many 
minutes before he was picking over " de 
ba'el" containing that peculiar pungent 
variety of plant so common to the grave- 
yards of Virginia. 

Before the cooling beverage had been 
surmounted by its delicate mouthpiece the 
street gate opened and the colonel walked 
briskly in. 

" Ah, Major ! You here } Jes the vehy 
man we wanted, suh ! Fitz and the Eng- 
lish agent are comin' to dinner. You have 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i6i 



heard the news, of co'se ? No ? Not about 
the .great syndicate absorbin' the Garden 
Spots ? My dear suh, she 's floated ! The 
C. & W. A. L. R. R. is afloat, suh ! Proudly 
ridin' the waves of prosperity, suh. Wafted 
on by the breeze of success." 

'' What, bought the bonds .? " I said, 
jumping up. 

"Well, not exactly bought them out- 
right, for these gigantic operations are not 
conducted in that way ; but next to it, suh. 
To-day," — and he brought his hand down 
softly on my shoulder, — '' to-day, -suh, they 
have cabled their agent — the same gen- 
tleman, suh, you saw in my office some time 
ago — to make a searchin' investigation 
into the mineral and agricultural resources 
of that section of my State, with a view to 
extendin' its railroad system. I quote, suh, 
the exact words : * extendin' its railroad sys- 
tem.' Think, my dear Major, of the effect 
that a colossal financial concern like the 
great British syndicate would produce upon 
Fairfax County, backed as it is, suh, by 
untold millions of stagnant capital abso- 
lutely rottin' in English banks ! The road 
is built!" And the colonel in his ex- 
citement opened his waistcoat, and began 



1 62 Colonel Caner of Cartersville 

pacing the yard, fanning himself vigorously 
with his hat. 

Chad substituted a palm-leaf fan from 
the hall table, and, producing a small tray, 
picked up the frosted tumbler and mounted 
the three steps to relieve the thirsty guest 
on the floor above. 

As he reached the last step a hand 
stretched out, and a voice said : — 

" Jes what I wanted." 

'* Dis julep, Jedge, is Major Yancey's." 

•'All the better." And nodding to the 
colonel ^nd bowing gravely to me, the 
Hon. I. B. Kerfoot settled himself on the 
top of the front steps with very much the 
same air with which he would have occu- 
pied his own judicial bench. 

With the exception that this julep was 
just begun and the other just ended, his 
Honor presented precisely the same out- 
ward appearance as when I discovered him 
asleep on the sofa. 

His was, in fact, the extremest limit of 
dishabille permissible even on the hottest 
of summer afternoons in the most retired 
of back yards, — no coat, no vest, no shoes. 
In one hand he held a crumpled collar and 
a high, black silk stock ; with the other he 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 163 



grasped the julep. His hair was tousled, 
his face shriveled up and pinched by his 
heavy nap, his eyes watery and vague. He 
reminded me of the man one sometimes 
meets in the aisle of a sleeping-car when 
one boards the train at a way station in the 
night. 

*' I hope you have had a refreshin' sleep, 
Jedge," said the colonel. '' My friend the 
major here did himself and me the honor 
of callin' upon you, but findin' that you 
were restin', suh, he sought the cool of my 
co'teyard until you should awake." 

His Honor looked at me over the edge 
of his tumbler and bowed feebly. The 
straw remained glued to his mouth. 

"I have been tellin' him, suh, of the 
extr'o'd'nary boom to-day in Garden Spots, 
as some of my young friends call the secu- 
'ities of my new road, work upon which 
will be begun next week." 

The announcement made no impression 
upon the judge, his face remaining sleepily 
stolid until that peculiar gurgling sound, 
the death-rattle of a dying julep, caused a 
shade of sadness to pass over it. 

At that instant the shutter again opened 
overhead. 



1 64 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

'' Hello, Colonel ! Home, are you ? 
Chad, Where's my julep ? Ah, Major, hope 
I see you vehy well, suh. Where 's Ker- 
foot ? " 

. That legal luminary craned his head for- 
ward as far as it would go without neces- 
sitating any additional movement of his 
body, caught Yancey's eye as he leaned 
out of the window, and held up the empty 
glass. 

When everybody had stopped laughing 
the colonel made a critical but silent exam- 
ination of the judge, called to Yancey, and 
said : — 

" Gentlemen, we do not dine until seven. 
You will both have ample time to dress." 



CHAPTER X 

Chad in Search of a Coal-Field 

The colonel was the first man down- 
stairs. When he entered I saw at a glance 
that it was one of his gala nights, for he 
wore the ceremonial white waistcoat and 
cravat, and had thrown the accommodating 
coat wide open. His hair, too, was brushed 
back from his broad forehead with more 
than usual care, each silver thread keep- 
ing its proper place in the general scheme 
of iron-gray ; while his goatee was twisted 
to so fine a point that it curled upward 
like a fishhook. He had also changed his 
shoes, his white stockings now being in- 
cased in low prunellas tied with a fresh, 
ribbon, which hung over the toes like the 
drooping ears of a lapdog. 

The attention which the colonel paid to 
these particular details was due, as he fre- 
quently said, to his beUef that a man would 
always be well dressed who looked after 
his extremities. 



i66 Colonel Carter oj Cartersville 

*' I can inva'iably, suh, detect the gentle- 
man under the shabbiest suit of clothes, if 
his collar and stockings are clean. When, 
besides this, he brushes his hat and blacks 
his shoes, you may safely invite him to 
dinner." 

Something like this was evidently pass- 
ing in his mind as he stood waiting for his 
guests, his back to the empty grate ; for 
he examined his hands critically, glanced 
at his shoes, and then excusing himself, 
turned his face, and taking a pair of scis- 
sors from his pocket proceeded leisurely to 
trim his cuffs. 

"These duties of the dressin'-room, my 
dear Major, should have been attended to 
in their proper place ; but the fact is the 
jedge is makin' rather an elaborate toilet 
in honor of our guest, and as Yancey occu- 
pies my bedroom, and the jedge is also 
dressin' there, my own accommodations 
are limited. I feel sure you will excuse 
me." 

While he spoke the door opened, and 
his Honor entered in a William Penn style 
of make-up, ruffled shirt and all. He really 
was not unlike that distinguished peace- 
maker, especially when he carried one of 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i6y 

the colonel's long pipes in his mouth. He 
had, I am happy to say, since leaving the 
front steps, accumulated an increased 
amount of clothing. The upper half of 
the familiar butternut suit — the coat — 
still clung to him, but the middle and lower 
half had been supplanted by another waist- 
coat and trousers of faded nankeen, the first 
corrugated into wrinkles and the second 
flapping about his ankles. 

The colonel absorbed him at a glance, 
and with a satisfied air placed a chair for 
him near the window and handed him a 
palm-leaf fan. 

Last of all came Yancey in a flaming red 
necktie, the only new addition to his cos- 
tume — a part, no doubt, of the "chicken 
fixin's " found by Chad in the carpet bag. 

The breezy ex-major, as he entered, 
seized my hand with the warmth of a life- 
long friend ; then moving over and encir- 
cling with his arm the colonel's coat collar, 
he lowered his voice to a confidential whis- 
per and inquired about the market of the 
day with as much solicitude as though his 
last million had been filched from him on 
insufficient security. 

When, a few minutes later, the round- 



1 68 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

faced man, the agent of the great EngHsh 
syndicate, walked in, preceded by Fitz, 
nothing could have been more courtly than 
the way the colonel presented him to his 
guests — pausing at every name to re- 
count some slight biographical detail com- 
plimentary to each, and ending by announ- 
cing with great dignity that his honored 
guest was none other than the very confi- 
dential agent and adviser of a group of 
moneyed magnates whose influence ex- 
tended to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

The agent, like many other sensible 
Englishmen, was a bluff, hearty sort of 
man, with a keen eye for the practical side 
of life and an equally keen enjoyment of 
every other, and it was not five minutes 
before he had located in his round head 
the precise standing and qualifications of 
every man in the room. 

While Yancey amused him greatly as a 
type quite new to him, the colonel filled 
him with delight. '* So frank, so courteous, 
so hospitable ; quite the air of a country 
squire of the old school," he told Fitz after- 
ward. 

As a host that night, the colonel was in 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville i6cf 

his happiest vein, and by the time the 
coffee was served, had succeeded not only 
in entertaining the table in his own inim- 
itable way, but he had drawn out from 
each one of his guests, not excepting the 
reticent Fitz, some anecdote or incident 
of his life, bringing into stronger relief the 
finer qualities of him who told it. 

Kerfoot in a ponderous way gave the 
details of a murder case, tried before him 
many years ago, in which the judge's 
charge so influenced the jury that the man 
was acquitted, and justly so, as was after- 
ward proved. Yancey related an incident 
of the war, where he, only a drummer boy 
at the time, assisted, at great risk, in car- 
rying a wounded comrade from the field. 
And Fitz was forced to admit that one of 
the largest financial operations of the 
day would have been a failure had he not 
stepped in at the critical moment and 
saved it. 

Up to this point in the dinner not the 
slightest reference had been made to the 
railroad or its interests except by the im- 
petuous Yancey, who asked Fitz what the 
bonds would probably be worth, and who 
was promptly silenced by the colonel with 



I JO Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

the suggestive remark that none were for 
sale, especially at this time. 

When, however, by the direction of the 
colonel, the cloth was removed and the old 
mahogany table that Chad rubbed down 
every morning with a cork was left with 
only the glasses, a pair of coasters and 
their decanters, — the Madeira within reach 
of the judge's hand, — the colonel rose 
from his chair and spread out on the pol- 
ished surface a stained and ragged map, 
labeled in one corner in quaint letters, 
*' Lands of John Carter, Esquire, of Carter 
Hall." Only then was the colonel ready 
for business. 

" This is the correct survey, I believe, 
Jedge," said the colonel. 

The judge emptied his glass, feJt all over 
his person for his spectacles, found them 
in the inside pocket of his nankeen waist- 
coat, and, perching them on the extreme 
end of his nose, looked over their rims and 
remarked that the original deeds of the 
colonel's estate had been based upon this 
map, and that, so far as he knew, it was 
correct. Then he added : — 

" The partition line that was made im- 
mejitly aafter the war, dividin' the estate 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville lyi 

between Miss Ann Caarter and yo'self, 
Colonel, was also tuk from this survey." 

Fitz conferred with the agent for a mo- 
ment and then asked the colonel where 
lay the deposit of coal of which he had 
spoken. 

*' In a moment, my dear Fitz," said the 
colonel, deprecatingly, and turning to the 
agent : — 

"The city of Fairfax, suh, that we dis- 
cussed this mornin', will be located to the 
right of this section ; the Tench runs here ; 
the iron bridge, suh, should cross at this 
point," marking it with his thumb nail. 
*' Or perhaps you gentlemen will decide to 
have it nearer the Hall. It is imma1,erial 
to me." 

Then looking at Fitz : " I can't locate 
the coal, my dear Fitz ; but I think it is 
up here on the hill at the foot of the 
range." 

The agent lost interest immediately in 
the iron bridge over the Tench, and asked 
a variety of questions about the deposit, 
all of which the colonel answered courte- 
ously and patiently, but evidently with a 
desire to change the subject as soon as 
possible. 



1^2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

The Englishman, however, was persis- 
tent, while the judge's last sententious re- 
mark regarding the recent subdivision of 
the estate awakened a new interest in Fitz. 

What if this coal should not be on the 
colonel's land at all ! He caught his breath 
at the thought. 

It was Fitz's only chance to restore the 
colonel's fortunes; and although for obvi- 
ous reasons he dared not tell him so, it was 
really the only interest the Englishman 
had in the scheme at all. 

Indeed, the agent had frankly said so to 
Fitz, adding that he was anxious to locate 
a deposit of coal somewhere in the vicinity 
of the line of the colonel's proposed road ; 
because the extension of certain railroads 
in which the syndicate was interested — 
not the C. & W. A. L. R. R., however — 
depended almost entirely upon the pur- 
chase of this vital commodity. 

Full of these instructions the agent, 
after listening to a panegyric upon the 
resources of Fairfax County, interrupted 
rather curtly a glowing statement of the 
colonel's concerning the enormous value of 
the Garden Spot securities by asking this 
question : — 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ly^ 

*' Are the coal lands for sale ?" 

Fitz shivered at its directness, fearing 
that the colonel would catch the drift af- 
fairs were taking and become alarmed. 
His fears were groundless ; the shot had 
gone over his head. 

" No, suh ! My purpose is to use it to 
supply our shops and motive power." 

"If you should decide to sell the lands I 
would make an investigation at once," re- 
plied the agent, quietly, but with meaning 
in his voice. 

The colonel looked at him eagerly. 

" Would you at the same time consider 
the purchase of our securities } " 

"I might." 

*' When would you go .'^ " 

"To-morrow night, or not at all. I re- 
turn to England in a week." 

Yancey and the judge looked at each 
other inquiringly with a certain anxious 
expression suggestive of some impending 
trouble. The judge recovered himself first, 
and quickly filled his glass, leaving but one 
more measure in the decanter. This meas- 
ure Yancey immediately emptied into his 
own person, as perhaps the only place 
where it would be entirely safe from the 
treacherous thirst of the judge. 



iy4 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

Fitz read in their faces these mental pro- 
cesses, and was more determined than ever 
to break up at once what he called '* the 
settlement." 

'^ Are you sho', Colonel," inquired Ker- 
foot, catching at straws, " that the coal 
lands lie entirely on yo' father's property ? 
Does not the Barbour Ian' jine yo's on the 
hill ? " 

'' I am not positively sho', suh, but I have 
always understood that what we call the 
coal hills belonged to my father. You see," 
said the colonel, turning to the agent, " this 
grade of wild Ian' is never considered of 
much value with us, and a few hundred 
acres mo' or less is never insisted on among 
old families of our standin' whose estates 
jine." 

Yancey expanded his vest, and said au- 
thoritatively that he was quite sure the coal 
hills were on the Barbour property. He 
had shot partridges over that land many a 
time. 

The agent, who had listened calmly to 
the discussion, remarked dryly that until 
the colonel definitely ascertained whether 
he had any lands to sell it would be a use- 
less waste of time to make the trip. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 775 

*' Quite so," said Kerfoot, raising the 
emptied decanter to his eye, and replacing 
it again with a look at Yancey expressive 
of the contempt in which he held a man 
who could commit so mean an act. 

"But, Colonel," said Fitz, ''can't you 
telegraph to-morrow and find out ? " 

" To whom, my dear Fitz ? It would 
take a week to get the clerk of the co'te to 
look through the records. Nobody at Bar- 
bour's knows." 

** Does Miss Nancy know .? " 

The colonel shook his head dubiously. 

Fitz's face suddenly lighted up as he 
started from his seat, and caught the colo- 
nel by the arm. 

*'Does Chad.?" 

"Chad! Yes, Chad might." 

Fitz nearly overturned his chair in his 
eagerness to reach the top of the kitchen 
stairs. 

"Come up here, Chad, quick as your 
legs can carry you — two steps at a time ! " 

Chad hurried into the room with the face 
of a man sent for to put out a fire. 

" Chad," said the colonel, "you know the 
big hill as you go up from the marsh at 
home.'* " 



1^6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

*'Yes, sah." 

*' Whose Ian' is the coal on, mine or 
Jedge Barbour's ? " 

The old darky's face changed from an 
expression of the deepest anxiety to an 
effort at the deepest thought. The change 
was so sudden that the wrinkles got tan- 
gled up in the attempt, resulting in an 
expression of vague uncertainty. 

"You mean, Colonel, de hill whar we 
cotch de big coon ? " 

'* Yes," said the colonel encouragingly, 
ignorant of the coon, but knowing that 
there was only one hill. 

''Well, Jedge Barbour's niggers always 
said dat de coon was dere coon, 'ca'se he 
was treed on dere Ian', and we 'sputed dat 
it was our coon, 'ca'se it was on our Ian'." 

" Who got de coon .? " asked Fitz. 

**Oh, we got the coon!" And Chad's 
eyes twinkled. 

" That settles it. It 's your land, Colo- 
nel," said Fitz, with one of his sudden 
roars, in which everybody joined but Chad 
and the judge. 

" But den, gemmen," — Chad was a little 
uncomfortable at the merriment, — " it was 
our coon for sho. I knowed whar de line 



Colonel Caller of Cartersville lyy 

went, 'ca'se I he'p Marsa John caarry de 
spy-glass when he sold de woodlan's to 
Jedge Barbour, an' de coon was on our side 
ob dat line." 

If Chad's first statement caused nothing 
but laughter, the second produced nothing 
but the profoundest interest. 

Here was the surveyor himself ! 

The colonel turned the map to Chad's 
side of the table. Every man in the room 
stood up and craned his head forward. 

"Now, Chad," said the colonel, ''this 
map is a plan of our Ian' — same as if you 
were lookin' down on it. Here is the road 
to Caartersville. See that square, black 
mark } That 's Caarter Hall. This is the 
marsh, and that is the coal hill. Now, 
standin' here in the marsh, — this is where 
our line begins, Fitz, — standin' here, Chad, 
in the marsh, which side of the line is that 
hill on } Mine or Jedge Barbour's .? " 

The old man bent over the table, and 
scanned the plan closely. 

''Wat 's dis blue wiggle lookin' like a 
big fish-wum .?•" 

"That's the Tench River." 

Chad continued his search, his wrinkled 
brown hand, with its extended forefinger 



ijS Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

capped by its stumpy nail, looking for all 
• the world like a mud turtle with head out 
crawling over the crumpled surface of the 
map. 

" Scuse me till I run down to de kitchen 
an' git my spec's. I can't see like " — 

*' Here, take mine ! " said Fitz, handing 
him his gold ones. He would have lent 
him his eyes if he could have found that 
coal-field the sooner. 

The turtle crawled slowly up, its head 
thrust out inquiringlj, inched along the 
margin of the map, and backed carefully 
down again, pausing for such running com- 
mentaries as " Dis yer 's de ribber ; " 
" Dat 's de road ; " " Dis de ma'sh." 

The group was now a compact mass, 
every eye watching Chad's finger as though 
it were a divining rod — Fitz full of smoth- 
ered fears lest after all the prize should slip 
from his grasp ; the agent anxious but re- 
served ; Yancey and the judge hovering 
between hope and despair, with eyes on the 
empty decanter ; and last of all the colonel, 
on the outside, holding a candle himself, so 
that his guests might see the better — the 
least interested man in the room. 

Presently the finger stopped, and Chad 
looked up into his master's face. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville lyg 

''If I was down dar, Marsa George, jes 
a minute, I could tole ye, 'ca'se I reckel- 
member de berry tree whar Marsa John 
had de spyglass sot on its legs. I held de 
pole on de rock way up yander on de hill, 
an' in dat berry rock Marsa John done cut 
a crotch." 

" And which way is the crotch in the 
rock from the marsh here.-*" asked Fitz 
eagerly. 

Chad stood up, looked at the plan glis- 
tening under the candlelight, paused an 
instant, then took off the gold-rimmed 
glasses, and handed them with great defer- 
ence to Fitz. 

"'T ain't no use, Marsa George. I kin 
go frough dat ma'sh blindfolded in de night 
an' cotch a possum airy time along airy one 
ob dem fences ; but dis yer foolin' wid lan's 
on paper is too much for Chad. 'Fo' Gawd, 
I doan' know ! " 



CHAPTER XI 

Chad on his own Cabin Floor 

The night after the eventful dinner in 
Bedford Place, the colonel, accompanied 
by his guests, had alighted at a dreary way 
station, crawled into a lumbering country 
stage, and with Chad on the box as pilot, 
had stopped before a great house with 
ghostly trailing vines and tall chimneys 
outlined against the sky. 

When I left my room on the following 
morning the sunlight was pouring through 
the big colonial window, and the breath of 
the delicious day, laden with the sweet 
smell of bending blossoms, floated in 
through the open blinds. 

Descending the great spiral staircase 
with its slender mahogany balusters, — 
here and there a break, — I caught sight 
of the entrance hall below with its hanging 
glass lantern, quaint haircloth sofas lining 
the white walls, and half-oval tables heaped 
with flowers, and so on through the wide- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i8i 

open door leading out upon a vine-covered 
porch. This had high pillars and low rail- 
ings against which stood some broad set- 
tles — all white. 

The colonel, Fitz, and the English agent 
were still in their rooms, — three pairs of 
polished shoes outside their several doors 
bearing silent witness to the fact, — and 




the only person stirring was a pleasant- 
faced negro woman with white apron and 
gay-colored bandana, who was polishing the 
parlor floor with a long brush, her little 



1 82 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

pickaninny astraddle on the broom end for 
weight. 

I pushed aside the hanging vines, sat 
down on one of the wooden benches, and 
looked about me. This, then, was Carter 
Hall! 

The house itself bore evidence of having 
once been a stately home. It was of plas- 
ter stucco, yellow washed, peeled and 
broken in places, with large dormer win- 
dows and sloping roof, one end of which 
was smothered in a tangle of Virginia 
creeper and trumpet vine climbing to the 
very chimney-top. 

In front there stretched away what had 
once been a well-kept lawn, now a wild of 
coarse grass broken only by the curving 
line of the driveway and bordered by a row 
of Lombardy poplars with here and there 
a gap, — bitten out by hungry camp-fires. 

To the right rose a line of hills increas- 
ing in height as they melted into the morn- 
ing haze, and to the left lay an old-fash- 
ioned garden, - — one great sweep of bloom. 
With the wind over it, and blowing your 
way, you were steeped in roses. 

I began unconsciously to recall to my- 
self all the traditions of this once famous 
house. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i8] 

Yes, there must be the window where 
Nancy waved good-by to her lover, and 
there were the flower-beds into which he 
had fallen headlong from his horse, — only 
a desolate corner now with the grass and 
tall weeds grown quite up to the scaling 
wall, and the wooden shutters tightly closed. 
I wondered whether they had ever been 
opened since. 

And there under my eyes stood the very 
step where Chad had helped his old mas- 
ter from his horse the day his sweetheart 
Henny had been purchased from Judge 
Barbour, and close to the garden gate were 
the negro quarters where they had begun 
their housekeeping. I thought I knew the 
very cabin. 

And that line of silver glistening in the 
morning light must be the river Tench, 
and the bend near the willows the spot 
where the colonel would build the iron 
bridge with the double span, and across and 
beyond on the plateau, backed by the hills, 
the site of the future city of Fairfax. 

I left my seat, strolled out into the gar- 
den, crossed the grass jeweled with dew, 
and filled my lungs with the odor of the 
sweet box bordering the beds, — a rare de- 



184 Colonel Carter of Carte rsville 

light in these days of modern gardens. Sud- 
denly I came upon a wide straw hat and a 
broad back bending among the bushes. It 
was Chad. 

'' Mawnin', Major ; fust fox out de hole, 
is yer? Lawd a massey, ain't I glad tergit 
back to my ole mist'ess ! Lan' sakes alive ! 
I ain't slep' none all night a-thinkin' ober 
it. You ain't seen my Henny ? Dat was 
her sister's chile rubbin' down de flo'. She 
come ober dis mawnin' ter help, so many 
folks here. Wait till I git a basket ob dese 
yer ole pink rose-water roses. See how I 
snip 'em short ? Know what I 'm gwineter 
do wid 'em ? Sprinkle 'em all ober de 
tablecloth. I lay dey ain't nobody done 
dat for my mist'ess since I been gone. 
But, Major," — here Chad laid down the 
basket on the garden walk and looked at 
me with a serious air, — "I done got dat 
coal lan' business down to a fine p'int. I 
was up dis mawnin' 'fo' daylight, an' I foun' 
dat rock, an' de crotch is dar yit ; I scrape 
de moss offen it myself ; an' I foun' de tree 
too. I ain't sayin' nuffin', but jes you wait 
till after breakfas' an' dey all go out lookin' 
for de coal ! Jes you wait, dat 's all ! Chad 's 
on his own cabin flo' now. Can't fool dis 
chile no mo'." 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville i8^ 

This was good news so far as it went. 
Our sudden exodus from Bedford Place had 
been determined upon immediately after 
Chad's dismal failure to locate the coal-field : 
Fitz having carried the day against Yancey, 
Kerfoot, and even the agent himself, who 
was beginning to waver under the accumu- 
lation of uncertainties. 

" Dat 's enough roses to bury up de 
dishes. Rub yo' nose down in 'em. Ain't 
dey sweet ! Now, come along wid me, 
Major. I done tole Henny 'bout you an' de 
tar'pins an' de times de gemmen had. Dis 
way. Major; won't take a minute, an' ef 
ye all go back to-night, — an' I yerd Mis- 
ter Englishman say /le got to go, — you 
might n't hab anudder chance. Henny 's 
cookin', ye know. Dis way. Step under 
dat honeysuckle ! " 

I looked through an open door and into 
a dingy, smoke-dried interior, ceiled with 
heavy rafters, and hung with herbs, red 
peppers, onions, and the like. This was 
lighted by three small windows, and fur- 
nished with a row of dressers filled with 
crockery and kitchen ware, and permeated 
by that savory smell which presages a gen- 
erous breakfast. On one side of the fire- 



i86 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

place rested the great hominy mortar, cut 
from a tree trunk, found in all Virginia 
kitchens, and on the other the universal 
brick oven with its iron doors, — the very 
doors, I thought, that had closed over 
Chad's goose when Henny was a girl. Be- 
tween the mortar and the oven opened, or 
rather caverned, a fireplace as wide as the 
colonel's hospitality, and high and deep 
enough to turn a coach in. It really cov- 
ered one end of the room. 

Bending over the swinging crane hung 
with pots and fringed with hooks, — baited 
so often with good dinners, — stood an 
old woman with bent back, her gray head 
bound up with a yellow handkerchief. 

" Henny, de major made a special p'int 
o' comin' to see ye 'fo' he gits his break- 
fas'." 

She looked up and dropped me a curt- 
sey. 

** Mawnin', marsa. I ain't much ter see, 
I 'm so ole an' mizzble wid dese yer cricks 
in my back an' sich a passel o' white folks. 
How did my Chad git along up dar 'mong 
de Yankees } " 

I gave Chad so good a character that 
every tooth in his head came out on dress 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i8y 




parade, and was about to draw from Henny 
some of her own experiences, — this loyal 
old servant whose life from her girlhood to 
her old age had been one of the romantic 
traditions of the roof that sheltered her, — 
when Chad, who had gone out with the 
roses, returned with the news that the colo- 
nel and his guests were breathing the morn- 
ing air on the front porch, and were much 
disturbed over my prolonged absence. 



1 88 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

The colonel caught sight of me as I 
rounded the corner, Fitz and the agent 
joining in his outburst of hilarious wel- 
come, intoxicated as they all were with the 
elixir of that most exhilarating of all hours 
— the hour before breakfast of a summer 
morning in the country. 

" Welcome, my dear Major," called the 
colonel ; " a hearty welcome to Caarter 
Hall ! Come up here where you can get 
a view of Fairfax, suh ! " and by the time 
I had mounted the steps he was lean- 
ing over the railing, with Fitz on the one 
side and the agent on the other, sweeping 
the horizon with his index finger and draw- 
ing imaginary curves and building bridges 
and locating railroad stations in the air 
with as much confidence and hope as if he 
really saw the gangs of laborers at work 
across the fields, their shovels ghnting in 
the dazzling sunlight. 

"Jes cast yo' eyes, suh," — this to the 
agent, — '* and tell me, suh, if you have 
ever in yo' world-wide experience seen 
such a location for a great city. Level as 
a flo', watered by the Tench, and sheltered 
by a line of hills that are beauty itself — it 
is made for it, suh ! " 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville i8g 

The agent did full justice to the natural 
advantages and then asked : — 

"Is the coal in that range ? " 

" No, suh ; the coal is behind us on an 
outlyin' spur. I will take you there after 
breakfast." 

And then followed a brief description 
of the changes the war had made in the 
homestead, the burning of the barns, the 
abandonment of the quarters, the destruc- 
tion of the lawns — *'A yard for their 
damnable wagons, suh ; " the colonel point- 
ing out with great delight the very dent 
in the ridge where General Early had rid- 
den through and captured the whole de- 
tachment without the loss of a man. 

While we were talking that same rus- 
tling of silk that I had learned to know so 
well in Bedford Place was heard in the 
hall, then a sweet, cheery voice giving 
some directions to Chad, and the next in- 
stant dear aunt Nancy — Fitz and I had 
long since dared to call her so — floated 
(she never seemed to walk) out upon the 
porch with a word and a curtsey to the 
agent, a hand each to Fitz and me, and a 
kiss for the colonel. 

Then cam.e the breakfast, and such a 



I go Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

breakfast ! The outpourings of a Virginia 
kitchen, with the table showered with 
roses, and the great urn shining and smok- 
ing, and the relays of waffles and corn- 
bread and broiled chicken ; all in the old- 
fashioned dining-room, with its high wain- 
scoting, spindle-legged sideboards, and 
deep window seats ; the long moon-faced 
clock in the corner — and the rest of it ! 
After that the quiet smoke under the vine- 
covered end of the portico with the view 
towards Cartersville. 

"There comes the jedge," said the colo- 
nel, pointing to a cloud of dust following 
a two-wheel gig, " and Major Yancey be- 
hind on horseback." (They had both been 
dropped outside their respective garden 
gates the night before.) " Now, gentle- 
men, as soon as my attorney arrives with 
the surveys and deeds we will adjourn to 
my library and locate this coal-field." 

Yancey's horse proved, on closer inspec- 
tion, to be the remnant of an army mule 
with a moth - eaten mane and a polished 
tail bare of hair — worn off, no doubt, in a 
lifelong struggle with the Fairfax County 
fly. The major was without the luxury of 
a saddle, some one bavin sf borrowed the 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville igi 

only one the owner of the mule possessed, 
and his breeches, in consequence, were 
half way up his knees. The judge arrived 
in better shape, the gig being his own and 
fairly comfortable, — the same he rode to 




circuit, a yellow-painted vehicle washed 
only when it rained, — and the horse the 
property of the village livery man, who had 
a yearly contract with his Honor for its 
use. 

Chad was waiting on the flagstones sur- 
rounded by some stray pickaninnies when 
the procession stopped, and assisted the 



ig2 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

major to alight, with as much form and 
ceremony as if he had been the best 
mounted gentleman in the land. The sad- 
dleless fragment was then led to a support- 
ing fence. The judicial equipage was ac- 
corded the luxury of a shed, where the 
annual contract was served with a full 
measure of oats — Chad's recognition of 
his more exalted station. 

The judge bowed gracefully and with 
great dignity, and with the air of a chief 
justice entering the court room ; then pre- 
ceding the colonel and his guests, — with- 
out a word having fallen from his lips, — 
he entered a small room opening into the 
parlor. There he placed upon a chair 
certain mysterious-looking packages, long 
and otherwise, one a tin case, which he 
uncapped, spreading its contents upon a 
table. 

It proved to be another and larger 
map than the one Chad had pored over, 
and showed distinctly the boundary lines 
between two dots marked '' Oak " and 
** Rock " dividing the Carter and Barbour 
estates. 

Up to this time Fitz and the agent had 
preserved the outward appearance of two 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville ig^ 

idle gentlemen visiting a friend in the 
country, with no interest beyond the fresh 
air and the environments of a charming 
hospitality. With the unrolling of this 
map, however, and the discovery of the 
very boundary points insisted on by Chad 
in Bedford Place, their excitement could 
hardly be suppressed. The agent broke 
loose first. 

" Before we find out, Colonel Carter, to 
whom this coal belongs, which may take 
some valuable time, I want to examine the 
quality of the vein itself. I would like to 
go now." 

*' By all means, suh ; and my people 
shall go with us," said the colonel, turning 
to Kerfoot with instructions to bring Chad 
and all the maps later. — Yancey excused 
himself on the ground of the heat. Then 
donning a wide straw hat and picking up a 
cane, — something he never used in New 
York, — the colonel led the way through 
the rear door, across a stone wall, and up 
a hill covered with a second growth of tim- 
ber. 

The experienced eye of the Englishman 
took in the lay of the land at a glance, 
and beckoning Fitz to one side he stooped 



ig4 Colonel Carter of Carter sville 

and picked something from the ground 
which he examined carefully with a magni- 
fying glass. Then they both disappeared 
hurriedly over the hill. 

When they returned, half an hour later, 
the perspiration was rolling from the agent, 
and Fitz's eyes were blazing. Both were 
loaded down with bundles of broken bits 
of rock, tied up in their several handker- 
chiefs, large enough to start a geological 
collection in a country museum. 

''What is it, Fitz — diamonds.?" I said, 
laughing. 

" Yes ; black ones at that." He was al- 
most breathless. ''Solid bed of bitumin- 
ous ! Clear down to China ! Don't breathe 
a word yet, for your life ! " 

The agent was calmer. The coal-bed, 
he said, seemed to be of more than ordi- 
nary richness, and as far as he could judge 
lay in a vein of generous width. He was 
ready for the survey, and would like the 
boundary points located at once. 

The next instant Chad's head peered 
through the tangled underbrush. He car- 
ried the roll of maps, the judge, who fol- 
lowed, contenting himself with a package 
tied with red tape. 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 795 

The old darky's face was one broad grin 
from ear to ear. 

The judge unrolled a map and placed it 
on a flat rock with a stone at each corner. 
Then he untied the package, selected an 
ink-stained and faded document marked 
"Deed — John Carter to E. A. Barbour," 
and ran his eye along the quaint page, 
reading as he went : — 

Starting from an oak, blazed diamond C, <^, 
along a line S. E. to a rock marked C cross 
B, C -|- B, in all a distance of 1437 linear feet. 

" Now, Chad, we will fust find the tree," 
said the judge, looking around for his map- 
bearer. " Where 's that nigger } Chad ! " 

The old man had disappeared as com- 
pletely as if the earth had swallowed him 
up. The next minute we heard a faint 
halloo below us near the edge of a small 
swamp. A man was waving his hat and 
shouting : — 

*' Eve'ybody come yer ! " 

Fitz started on a run, and the agent and 
I followed on the double-quick. At the 
end of a crooked stone wall, half sur- 
rounded by water, was a great spreading 



ig6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville ■ 

oak, its branches reaching half way across 
the narrow marsh. Within touching dis- 
tance of the yielding ground stood Chad 
pointing to a smooth blaze, stained and over- 
grown with lichen. 

It bore this mark, <^ ! 

''It tallies to a dot. Now, Chad, the 
rock ! the rock ! " said Fitz, hardly able to 
contain himself. 

The darky pointed straight up the hill, 
the sky line of which could be seen entire 
from where we stood, and indicated an iso- 
lated rock jutting out above the tree-tops. 

I thought Fitz would have hugged him. 

" How do you know it is the rock with 
the crotch in it ? Speak, you grinning 
lunatic ! " 

" I was dar dis mawnin' by daylight." 

'' What 's it marked } " said Fitz, catch- 
ing him by both shoulders. ''What's it 
marked ? Quick ! " 

"Wid a C an' a cross an' a B — so." 
And the old man traced it with his finger 
in the mud. 

" Every pound of coal on the colonel's 
land ! " said Fitz, with a yell that brought 
his host and Kerfoot as fast as their legs 
could carry them. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville igj 

" Stop ! " said Kerfoot. " This only set- 
tles the Caarter and Barbour division. 
There was another division here a year 
ago between Miss Ann Caarter and the 
colonel. With that I am mo' familiar, for 
I drew the deeds, which are here," holding 
up a bundle ; " and I was also present with 
the surveyor. You are wrong, Mr. Fitz- 
patrick; this entire hill outside the Bar- 
bour division is Miss Ann Caarter's, and 
the coal is on her land. The colonel's por- 
tion is back there along the Tench." 



CHAPTER XII 

The Englishman s Check 

An hour later I found Fitz flat on the 
grass under one of the apple-trees behind 
the house, completely broken up by the 
discoveries of the morning. 

After all his work, here was the colonel 
worse off than ever. Nobody could tell 
what a woman would do. Aunt Nancy 
was better than the average (Fitz was a 
bachelor), but then she had peculiar old 
family notions about selling land, and ten 
chances to one she would not sell a foot of 
it, and there right in the house sat a man 
with his pocket full of blank checks, any 
one of which was good for a million of 
pounds sterling. Even if she did sell it, 
she would pension the dear old fellow off 
on a stipend instead of an estabhshment. 
He wanted somebody to dig a hole and 
cover Fitzpatrick up. Anybody could see 
that the railroad scheme was deader than 
a last year's pass, the farm hopeless, and 



Colonel Carter of Carte rsville igg 

the house fast becoming a ruin. It was 
enough to make a man jump off a dock. 

Fitz's tirade was interrupted by Chad, 
who appeared with a message. The colo- 
nel wanted everybody in the library. 

When we entered, the judge occupied 
the head of the table, surrounded by law 
papers, all of which were opened. The 
agent was bending over him, reading atten- 
tively, and entering extracts in his note- 
book. Every one became seated. 

" Mr. Fitzpatrick," said the agent, " I 
have spent an hour with Judge Kerfoot 
going over the title of this property, and I 
am prepared to make a proposition for its 
purchase. I have reduced it to writing," 
— picking up a half-sheet of foolscap from 
the table, — '^ and I submit it to the owners 
through you." 

Fitz read it without changing a muscle, 
and handed it to the colonel. Yancey and 
the judge craned forward to catch the first 
syllables. 

The colonel read it to the end, getting 
paler and paler as its meaning became 
clear, and then, with a certain pathos in his 
voice that was childlike, it was so genuine, 
said : — 



200 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

*' If this is accepted, I presume, suh, you 
will not look any further into my road ? " 

" You are right. My instructions cover 
only the purchase of this deposit. I have 
room for only one operation." 

The colonel rose from his chair, steadied 
himself on the low window-sill, and looked 
out across the Tench. The silence was 
oppressive — only the ticking of the clock 
in the next room and the bees among the 
flowers outside. 

''Wait until I return," he said, crumpling 
the paper. 

In a moment he was back, leading in his 
aunt by the hand. Miss Nancy entered 
with a half-puzzled look on her face, which 
deepened into certain anxiety as she began 
to realize the pronounced formality of the 
proceedings. The colonel cleared his throat 
impressively. 

'' Nancy, an investigation begun in New 
York by my dear friend Fitz, and com- 
pleted here to-day, results in the discov'ry 
that what you have always considered as 
slight outcroppin's of coal, and wuthless, is 
really of vehy great value." The colonel 
here unbuttoned his coat, and threw out his 
chest. "A syndicate of English capital- 



Colonel Carter of Carter sville 201 

ists have, through our guest, offered you 
the sum of one hundred thousand dollars 
for the coal-hill, with a royalty of ten cents 
per ton for every ton mined over a certain 
amount, one thousand dollars to be paid 
now and the balance on the search of title 
and signin' of the contract. I believe I 
have stated it correctly, suh ? " 

The agent bowed his head, and scruti- 
nized Miss Nancy's face with the eye of a 
hawk. 

The dear lady sank into a chair. For 
a moment she lost her breath. Yancey 
handed her a fan with a quickness of move- 
ment never seen in him before, and the 
colonel continued : — 

''This will of course still leave you, 
Nancy, this house and about half of the 
farm property transferred to you by me at 
the fo'closure sale." 

The little woman looked from one to the 
other in a dazed sort of way, and her eye 
rested on Fitz. 

''What shall I do, Mr. Fitzpatrick .? It 
seems to me a grave step to sell any part 
of the estate." 

Fitz blushed at the mark of her con- 
fidence, and said that with the royalty 



202 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

clause he thought the proposition a favor- 
able one. 

'' And you, George ? " turning to the 
colonel. 

The colonel bowed his head. He must 
advise its acceptance. 

"When do you want an answer, sir?" 

"To-day, Madam," said the Englishman, 
who had not taken his eyes from her face. 

"You shall have it in half an hour," she 
said gently, then rose hastily, and left the 
room. 

I looked at the colonel. Whatever great 
wave of disappointment had swept over 
him when his own idol was broken, there 
was no trace of it in his face. Even the 
change this sudden influx of wealth into 
the family might make in his own condition 
never seemed to have crossed his mind. 
He did not follow her. He simply waited. 
Between his own plans and his aunt's good 
fortune there was but one course for him. 

The room took on the whispered silence 
of a court awaiting an overdue jury. Fitz 
was still incredulous and still anxious, say- 
ing to me in an undertone that he felt sure 
she would either refuse it altogether or 
couple it with some conditions that the 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 20^ 

agent could not accept ; either would be 
fatal. Yancey and the judge, who had 
been partly paralyzed at the rapidity of the 
transaction, conferred in a corner, while 
the agent proceeded to make a copy of the 
proposition with as much composure as if 
he bought a coal-mine every day. The 
colonel sat by himself, his chair tilted back, 
his eyes half closed. 

In the midst of this uncertainty Chad 
entered with a message. " Miss Nancy 
wants de colonel." In five minutes more 
he entered with another. Miss Nancy 
wanted Fitz and me. 

We followed the old servant up the wind- 
ing staircase and down the long hall, past 
the old-fashioned wardrobe and the great 
chintz-covered lounge, waited until Chad 
knocked gently, and entered the dear lady's 
bedroom. 

She sat near the window by the side of 
the high post bedstead, rocking gently to 
and fro. The colonel was standing with 
his back to the light, coat open, thumbs in 
his armholes, face beaming. 

''I sent for you," she began, '^ because I 
want you both to hear my answer before 
I inform the agent. The land only was 



204 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

mine, and but for your love and devotion 
to the colonel would still be a wild hill. 
The coal, therefore, belongs to him. Go 
and tell the Englishman I accept his 
offer. The land and all the coal I give to 
George." 

When, an hour later, the transaction was 
complete, the receipts and preliminary con- 
tracts signed, and the small, modest-looking 
check — the first instalment — had been 
transferred from the plethoric bank-book 
of the agent to the narrow, poverty-stricken 
pocket of the colonel, and the fact began 
to dawn simultaneously upon everybody 
that at last the dear old colonel was inde- 
pendent, an enthusiasm took possession of 
the room that soon became uncontrollable. 

Fitz caught him in his arms, and began 
hugging him in a way that endangered 
every rib in his body, calUng out all the time 
that he had never felt so good in all the days 
of his life. Yancey and Kerfoot, who had 
stood one side appalled by the magnitude 
of the sum paid, and who during the sign- 
ing of the papers had looked at the colonel 
with the same sort of silent awe with which 
they would have regarded any other po- 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 20^ 

tentate rolling in estates, mines, and mil- 
lions, broke through the enforced reserve, 
and exclaimed, with an outburst, that the 
South was looking up, and that a true 
Southern gentleman had come into his 
own, the judge adding with emphasis that 
the colonel had never looked so much like 
his noble father as when he stooped over 
and signed that receipt. Even the Eng- 
lishman, hard, practical fellow that he was, 
congratulated him on his good fortune in a 
few short words that jumped out hot from 
his heart. 

With this atmosphere about him it is not 
to be wondered that the colonel lost the 
true inwardness of the situation. The fact 
that his aunt's boundary line included every 
acre of valuable land on the plantation, 
while his own poor portion only bordered 
the Tench, was to him simply one of those 
trifling errors which sometimes occur in 
the partition of vast landed estates. And 
although when the gift was made he felt 
more than ever her loving -kindness, he 
could not now, on more mature reflection 
and after hearing the encomiums of his 
friends, really see how she could have pur- 
sued any other course. 



2o6 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

And yet, with the sale accomplished and 
he rich beyond his wildest dreams, he was 
precisely the same man in bearing, manner, 
and speech that he had been in his impe- 
cunious days in Bedford Place. He was 
rich then — in hopes, in plans, in the reality 
of his dreamland. He was no richer now. 
The check in his pocket made no differ- 
ence. 

The only perceptible change was when 
he recounted to me his plans for the res- 
toration of the homestead and the com- 
fort of its inmates. '' I shall rebuild the 
barns and cabins, and lay out a new lawn. 
The po'ch " — looking up — ''needs some 
repairs, and the ca'iage-house must be en- 
larged. The coaching days are not over 
yet, Major ; Nancy must have " — 

Chad, entering with a luncheon for the 
exhausted circle, diverted the colonel's train 
of thought, cutting short his summary. For 
a moment he watched his old servant mus- 
ingly, then following him into the next room 
he called him to one side, and with marked 
tenderness in his manner unfolded the Ens;- 
lishman's check. 

The old servant put down the empty 
tray, adjusted his spectacles, and examined 
it carefully. 



Colonel Carter of Cartersville 2oy 

" What 's dis, Marsa George ? " 

"A thousand dollars, Chad." 

*' Golly ! Monst'ous quare kind o' money. 
Jes a scrap. Ain't big enough to wad a 
gun, is she } An' Misser Englishman gib 
ye dis for dat ole brier patch 1 " 

Chad was trembling all over, full to the 
very eyelids. 

The colonel held out his hand. The old 
servant bent his head, his master's hand 
fast in his. Then their eyes met. 

" Yes, Chad, for you and me. There 's 
no hard work for you any mo', old man. 
Go and tell Henny." 

That night at dinner, Fitz on the colo- 
nel's right, the Englishman next to aunt 
Nancy, Kerfoot, Yancey, and I disposed in 
regular order, Chad noiseless and attentive, 
the colonel arose in his chair, radiant to 
the very tip ends of his cravat, and, in a 
voice which trembled as it rose, said : — 

" Gentlemen, the events of the day have 
unexpectedly brought me an influx of 
wealth far beyond my brightest anticipa- 
tions. This is due in great measure to the 
untirin' brain and vast commercial resources 
of my dear friend Mr. Fitzpatrick, who has 



2o8 Colonel Carter of Cartersville 

labored with me durin' my sojourn Nawth 
in the development of these properties, and 
who now, with that unselfishness which 
caaracterizes his life, refuses to accept any 
share in the result. 

" They have also strengthened the tie 
existin' between my old friend the major 
on my left, who oftentimes when the day 
was darkest has cheered me by his counsel 
and companionship. 

" But, gentlemen, they have done mo'." 
The colonel's feet now barely touched the 
floor. '' They have enabled me to provide 
for one of the loveliest of her sex, — she 
who graces our boa'd, — and to enrich her 
declinin' days not only with all the comforts, 
but with many of the luxuries she was bawn 
to enjoy. 

" Fill yo' glasses, gentlemen, and drink 
to the health of that greatest of all bless- 
ings, — a true Southern lady ! " 



34 7- 90 



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HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 

' I ,«. AUG 90 

N. MANCHESTER, 
iMHiaNA 46962 



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